Murder Has No Guilt

by Phillip Strang

  Bridget Halloran, a long-time friend of Wendy Gladstone, looked after the administrative side of the department. She and Wendy had pooled their resources and moved in together a couple of years earlier, when Bridget, a woman in her late forties, had kicked her layabout lover out of her house, and Wendy’s husband had died.

  In Isaac’s office, apart from the plant in the corner, a gift from Wendy and Bridget when one of his previous romances had ended, the furnishings consisted of a filing cabinet, a desk replete with laptop and monitor, a chair for the incumbent, and three more for the department’s core team.

  ‘We need to identify those at the scene,’ Isaac said. He was leaning back on his chair, glad of the chance to rest. The night before the team had worked late wrapping up a murder investigation, the death of an old man. In that case, it had been the daughter desperate for the man’s money who had been arrested, but now all she was going to get was a lengthy stay in prison. And besides, unbeknown to the woman, her father had changed his will six months previously, writing the daughter out.

  ‘Who do we have a positive ID on?’ Bridget asked.

  ‘Guy Hendry and Gillian Dickenson. Also, Giuseppe Briganti, the owner of the salon.’

  ‘Hairdresser to the Stars.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Even to the Royals, so they say.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The magazines that obsess about such matters.’

  ‘Pure nonsense, just entertainment. But Briganti is well known and expensive.’

  ‘Alphonso Abano was there as well. Two of the others appear to be employees of Briganti’s, so they shouldn’t be too difficult to identify. That leaves two others, a man in his thirties dressed in a suit. There was a car outside, appeared to be his. Follow up on the registration.’

  ‘I have,’ Bridget said. ‘Paul Waverton, banker.’

  ‘Who’s taken responsibility for informing the next of kin?’

  ‘It’s your job, although they won’t suppress Guy Hendry’s identity for very long.’

  ‘You’ve got the addresses?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Very well. Let’s go. There was also another woman there. She didn’t look to be an employee, and she was dressed cheaply. Not a customer, and not related to anyone else in the salon. Also, she was clutching a magazine, the type that you two like.’

  ‘A fan of Hendry’s?’

  ‘It’s probable. Let’s deal with the next of kin first. Who’s nearest?’

  ‘Gillian Dickenson’s mother lives five minutes from here.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll start with her. Wendy, it may be best if you come with me. Larry, return to the crime scene, follow through on the unknowns. And see if there’s any more evidence that we can work with.’

  ‘If it’s professional, then it’s unlikely.’

  ‘Then find out who the target was. The others would have been dispatched to prevent witnesses.’

  ‘It’s very sad,’ Bridget said.

  ‘It’s those who are left behind that suffer the most. And besides, we’re here to do a job, not to get emotional,’ Isaac said. ‘One more thing, I knew Gillian Dickenson. Nothing in itself, but she was at a party I went to about six months ago.’

  Chapter 3

  ‘It’s Gillian, isn’t it?’ Maureen Dickenson, an attractive woman in her late forties, said as she opened the front door to her house. She was dressed similarly to the way her daughter had been when she was killed. Wendy thought that on another woman it would have made the person look cheap, but not with her.

  ‘Can we come in?’ Isaac said.

  Inside the house the woman sat on the edge of her seat.

  ‘I’m sorry, but your daughter has been killed.’

  There was no initial reaction for what seemed like an eternity.

  ‘How?’ Maureen Dickson eventually said.

  ‘There’s been a shooting. Your daughter was an unfortunate consequence,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Was she with Guy?’

  ‘She was. He has died as well.’

  ‘I knew no good would come of her associating with him.’

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘I was younger than Gillian when I went out with him, but I saw through him soon enough, the same as she would have. But now, she’ll not get a chance. Can I see her?’

  ‘Later today, maybe tomorrow,’ Wendy said. ‘We’ll need an identification. It’s either you or her father.’

  ‘Her father’s dead, five years ago.’

  ‘Can I ask how?’ Isaac said.

  ‘There’s not much to say. He died in a car accident one night. It was late, not one block from here when a drunk ran a red light and slammed into Gerry’s car. He was a good man, strong on discipline, and we brought up our daughter well. But you know the young, always looking for that extra bit of excitement, and Guy was that.’

  ‘Is there anyone who can be with you?’ Isaac said.

  ‘My sister. Her number’s in my phone.’

  Wendy took the woman’s phone and called the sister.

  ‘Five minutes,’ Wendy said after she had ended the call.

  Isaac returned to talking with the dead woman’s mother. ‘Sorry about this, but I must ask some questions.’

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘We don’t know who was targeted. We’re assuming it wasn’t your daughter, but what can you tell us about Guy Hendry?’

  ‘I told you. I knew him when we were both young, and then, he’s there with Gillian. I told her to be careful. The man’s a charming rogue, or should I say he was. I was with him for a few months in my teens before he became the big celebrity. I fell for him in a big way, but I could see no future in it. Gillian would have enjoyed the lifestyle for a while, and then she would have left him and looked for someone more suitable.’

  ‘She was part of that lifestyle. I’ve seen her on the television, the occasional game show,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Gillian always had a good moral compass, the legacy of her father and me, but she was ambitious, and you’ve seen her. The sort of woman who turned men’s heads, as I did in my day.’

  ‘You still would.’

  ‘I try to look after myself, but now it doesn’t seem so important, does it?’

  ‘It does,’ Isaac said.

  ‘You’re a charmer too. I can see that.’

  In the nearly thirty minutes they’d been in the front room of the terrace house, Maureen Dickenson had not once shed a tear or expressed remorse at her daughter’s death. Isaac thought it unusual but knew that different people react in different ways. He assumed that, behind the façade, the woman had experienced sadness and disappointment and heartache in her life, and one more blow, as severe as it was, was not going to cause her to break down and show her true feelings. He imagined that once they were gone, she would relent and let the emotions flood over her.

  After twenty minutes, more than the five initially promised, a knock at the door.

  ‘I’m Gillian’s aunt, Maureen’s sister. How is she?’ a woman who looked older than her sister said.

  ‘She’s holding up.’

  ‘Was Gillian with him?’

  ‘She was.’

  Inside the house, the two sisters embraced; Stephanie, in tears.

  ‘You mentioned Guy Hendry when I opened the door,’ Wendy said when the two women eventually sat down.

  ‘I didn’t like him, not like Maureen and Gillian,’ Stephanie said.

  ‘It goes back a long time,’ Maureen said. ‘He wanted Steph before me, but my sister you’ll come to realise is more sensible than me. She rejected him at the first instance, and that’s when he came on to me. No doubt Gillian was the same to him, a plaything on the rebound from another.’

  ‘That’s not something that a mother would be pleased to think of their daughter,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Gillian had her head screwed on, and if a middle-aged lecher wanted to fritter his money, and if she wanted to think it was love eternal, then no harm has been done. And besi
des, she wasn’t the sort to come home pregnant.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘I suppose I was foolish back then, but don’t try and read anything into it. Guy had been my lover, and now he’s Gillian’s.’

  ‘Men such as Hendry make enemies: jealous husbands, disgruntled boyfriends, discarded women.’

  ‘Hendry was a total bastard,’ Stephanie said. ‘Not that there weren’t some who didn’t hate him, but killing him and Gillian in cold blood, that makes no sense.’

  Wendy looked over at Maureen and could see that the enormity of what had occurred was starting to sink in. ‘Do you have a doctor we could call?’ she said.

  ‘I’m a qualified doctor,’ Stephanie said. ‘I’ll stay here and make sure my sister is fine. It may be a good time for you both to leave.’

  ‘If there are further questions, we’ll come back. I’m sorry that we had to be the bearer of sad news,’ Isaac said.

  ‘You’re only doing your job. Just make sure you get the bastard who did this.’

  ‘We will.’

  Outside the house, the two police officers stood for a while.

  ‘How do you think it went?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Better than most. The one part of the job I hate, telling parents that their child is not coming back home again.’

  ‘She took it well.’

  ‘I know,’ Isaac said as the two of them walked to their car. Gillian Dickenson was the first, she wasn’t the last visit for that day. Guy Hendry’s family had to be told next, and then there were the others who had died in that salon that day; Larry Hill could deal with some of those.

  As for the others, additional police officers would be charged with the responsibility of informing the nearest and dearest. The time to inform had to be that day, as it would not take long for the identities of those in the salon to become known, and Guy Hendry would be on the evening news – a television personality, a man about town, a lothario, was always good copy.

  As Isaac and Wendy drove away from the area, Isaac glanced up at the Dickenson house. Wendy phoned for a uniform to be assigned to the house to keep away the media and the onlookers.

  ***

  Kensington High Street, and four hours had passed since the shooting. The traffic was lighter on Isaac and Wendy’s return to the crime scene. Gordon Windsor was standing nearby, a coffee in his hand.

  ‘They’ve all been identified,’ Windsor said. Isaac thought the man looked drained, more than usual. They had worked together on many cases before and had seen sights that no sane person should see: headless corpses, bodies decayed after years in shallow graves, throats cut.

  ‘Worse than most?’ Isaac said.

  ‘The women are the hardest to take.’

  ‘I had met Gillian Dickenson once before,’ Isaac said, realising that he had not mentioned it to the woman’s mother.

  ‘We’ve all seen her on the television. Very attractive once, I suppose, but now it seems ghoulish to make comments about how pretty she had been. She’ll not look so good after Pathology’s checked her out.’

  ‘They’ll all be subject to a full autopsy. Any clues as to who was the primary target?’

  ‘None. Alphonso Abano was a criminal, but hardly justifying an assassination.’

  ‘That’s what it was,’ Isaac said. He was now holding a coffee courtesy of a uniform who had fetched it from a café across the road that was doing sterling business with the additional customers. One lane of the road had reopened to traffic and the barriers were being pulled further back to allow the regular transit of vehicles in both directions. The front window and door of the salon were being covered to block prying eyes.

  ‘Any ideas?’ Windsor asked.

  ‘Not yet. The other woman?’

  ‘Sal Maynard according to her driving licence. She’s not from around here. There’s an address.’

  ‘What can you tell us about her?’

  ‘There’s a photo on her phone with her arms around Hendry. Not the sort of woman that Hendry would go for.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Wendy said, taking umbrage at Windsor’s comment.

  ‘No offence, purely an observation. Sal Maynard came from Stockwell, a ten-storey tenement, low-rental.’

  Wendy realised that Gordon Windsor was only profiling, a necessary part of a police investigation, but her socialist leanings were offended when a dead woman was degraded in comparison to another who, by her mother’s admission, was sleeping with the man that she herself had slept with in the past. Again, Wendy could see that the wealthy and the famous were excused for their failings, but for the poor and unknown and unattractive, a different set of rules applied.

  ‘She could have been a decoy, paid to distract the others while the killer entered the premises, measured up the situation,’ Isaac said.

  ‘But she was killed as well,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Collateral damage. Who knows what she had been told, and what her history is. It could be relevant. We’ll check her out next.’

  Chapter 4

  Neither of the two police officers was impressed when they parked outside Sal Maynard’s address, the urge to comment muted on account of the woman’s violent death. Due to their delay in arriving at the ninth-floor flat in the drab concrete and poorly maintained building, the local police station had taken the responsibility of informing the next of kin.

  A uniform was stationed outside the entrance to the flat. He sharpened up, stood to attention upon seeing the senior officers. ‘Not much to say,’ he said when quizzed by Isaac. ‘They’ve been informed, that’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘They’ve? You know them?’

  ‘Down at the station, the Maynards are well known. Fencing stolen goods, stealing cars and a quick respray, the occasional incident down at the pub when the eldest gets drunk and starts throwing his weight around.’

  ‘Sal Maynard?’ Wendy said. She was not impressed with the uniform’s attitude. A family was grieving, yet he showed no compassion, only disdain for those inside.

  ‘She didn’t get into trouble, not too much anyway. A few too many drinks sometimes, and she was argumentative. A conviction for shoplifting when she was younger, but nothing recently. I can’t say I liked her very much, a foul mouth, but that’s about it. Sorry for talking bad about the woman, but I thought you’d like the truth. Inside, you’ll no doubt receive the saccharine version.’

  ‘No doubt we will,’ Isaac said. ‘The neighbours?’

  ‘A few want to get in and offer their condolences. A few just want to be nosy. You know how it is.’

  ‘Unfortunately, we do. High crime rate in this building?’

  ‘Not as high as you would expect. There are a lot of recent arrivals in the building, the women covered up, the men trying to do their best. I can’t say I understand them, but on the whole they cause little trouble. There are others here who’d steal anything, and sometimes the drunks will bait the immigrants. One day there’ll be trouble, hopefully not today.’

  ‘Not sure I appreciate his take on the Maynards and the locals,’ Wendy said as she and Isaac waited for the door to the flat to open.

  ‘Don’t judge him too harshly. They’ve got a difficult job with the disparate society down here,’ Isaac said.

  The door opened, a heavily-tattooed and burly man stood on the other side.

  ‘DCI Cook, DS Gladstone, Challis Street Homicide,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Come in,’ the man said, exhaling cigarette smoke over the two officers.

  Isaac and Wendy walked down the narrow hallway, brushing against the coats hanging on hooks to their right. A dog barked from behind a closed door. There was a distinct smell in the air of perspiration, stale smoke and alcohol. Isaac felt like taking his handkerchief and holding it over his nose.

  ‘A saint, I’m telling you she was,’ a female voice shouted from the room at the end of the hallway.

  Isaac and Wendy passed through the doorway to find a group of people sitting around. On the table in the centre of t
he room, a half-empty bottle of whisky.

  ‘DCI Cook…’

  ‘Don’t bother with your names. You’re not welcome here, nor is he outside,’ the woman who had shouted, said.

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Beverley Maynard, her mother. Have you found the bastard who killed my daughter?’

  ‘We’re still conducting enquiries.’

  ‘Then why are you here? We didn’t kill her.’

  ‘We’re assuming that your daughter wasn’t the primary target,’ Wendy said. ‘We need to ascertain her movements, to check if she or you may have seen anything. What can you tell us about your daughter?’

  ‘She was a good girl, not like the others.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘My two eldest. Alex, you’ve met. He’s always in trouble for this and that. The other layabout sitting sheepishly, that’s Harry, a nasty piece of work, and to think I carried him for nine months.’

  ‘Mum, you shouldn’t say that, not to them. They’re the police, even if they’re not wearing a uniform,’ Alex said. He was leaning against the wall, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, a glass of whisky in his hand.

  ‘I’ll say what I like. I’m the mother, and I’m sad, even if you’re not. You two made Sal’s life hell, even when she was younger, and now look at what’s happened. Snatched away from me, the only one who cared, and who’s going to look after me now?’

  ‘Mrs Maynard, if we could come back to your daughter,’ Isaac said. He could empathise with the uniform outside. This was clearly a fractious family who not only gave the police trouble but would not have been liked in the area. He was sure that if they enquired they would find few that would speak kindly of the family in flat 923.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Your daughter’s movements. She was in Kensington. Did she go there often?’

  ‘Sal liked to look in the shop windows. She was obsessed with those who had money and fame. I don’t know why as she wasn’t much to look at. When I was her age, I was a looker, mark my words.’

  ‘You’re a liar,’ Harry Maynard said. ‘Our old man, before you nagged him to death, said you were selling yourself not far from here. That’s where he met you, said you were cheap, and not too fancy even back then. At least Sal didn’t do that, not that she did much else.’