Two sumptuous Christmas trees, one each side of the huge Tudor fireplace’s crackling log fire, are both intricately laden with many colourful decorations, delicately sparkling from the professionally placed myriads of lights.
My view outside is spectacular. The imperious drive to the giant gates of death, the hills beyond and away to my right with D’Eynscourte Hall, a brooding shape in the fading light. A wiry old gardener in baggy clothing and woolly hat is tending the lawn with delicate concern. Within a minute, three huge Tesla vehicles, all shining black with tinted windows and personalised number plates, ease out from the trees and cruise along a lane to halt before Albion’s front doors by the frozen white marble fountain. A gaggle of people dismount, dark figures indistinguishable in the half light. Fenwick whispers to me that these latest electric limousines cost over £100,000 each, with a waiting list of over a year to obtain one.
A Ms Baker stands sentry at the door, watching us without a flicker after she led us silently through an enormous modern kitchen via a long-carpeted hall to here. Her body language screams we should be in the servants’ quarters or perhaps the barn or preferably the stocks. Despite her obvious disapproval, I roam the room, laden as it is with sculptures of Classical figures in recesses, an Impressionist painting, a grand piano with fragrant candles lit to illuminate any player in a pool of light and a Mozart sonata lying open on the stand. Silver plates, crystal bowls, discreetly period, and the odd modern canvas, shelves lined with works of literature, expensive antiques.
The grandeur of Albion House literally takes your breath away. Even if it has taken a billionaire banker to bring it to its former ‘glory’, if that is the word for those eighteenth-century times of slavery and imperialism. Perhaps an apt pursuit for a man who makes money betting for and against whole countries, affecting tens of millions without a second glance or worry for others in the heartless casino of high finance where he dwells. A man who dodges from country to country to avoid taxes here, ready to take from his own country but not contribute fairly. Tis ever thus with the rich.
Perhaps with us all if we have the chance? I do not think so. Most people want to contribute. Not to do so is lacking common decency. Here is a world of profound greed and selfishness, riddled with or on the edge of criminality, yet protected by a bevy of lawyers and lobbyists.
One reason why I joined the police. To help counter the toxicity in the system. I wanted to work on Economic or Cyber Crime, which was hardly being tackled in those days; nor now, truth be told. Naive stupid idealism on my part that I could make any difference at all, especially in the police, the key protectors of the status quo. Maggie Thatcher did not give the police a massive pay rise for no reason shortly before provoking the miner’s strike in the 1980’s and using us to crush their impertinence.
Whittle and Fenwick are with me: reward, encouragement, a learning experience, two witnesses and note takers. They had been hooked, and possibly a little frightened, as I briefed them, told them the bare bones of how I was going to play it, weaknesses we would look to exploit, places I wanted them to stand, interruptions I wanted them to make if appropriate.
Through the rear windows, two lines of tall and ancient silver birch, ash, beech and fir trees are a natural picture frame writ large to lead the onlooker’s eye to the distant lake and its grey swans in a scene that has stood as landscaped art down the centuries. I know I show my feelings, almost embrace this scene as a much-loved long lost friend. My body lifts and slumps. Lost in childhood memories of playing here with Val and Bess when the house was a ruin.
Bess even at seven years of age was disapproving as the renowned D’Eysncourte Hunt gathered nearby; all red and black plumage on giant horses, the pack of hounds lithely hurtling forth to play and the terrified fox racing ahead of them. In these woods, Val and I as teenagers joined the shouting beaters, breath visible in the chill January air as the guns on the shoot went off beyond to achieve a row of dead birds hung outside D'Eynscourte Hall’s kitchen at nightfall.
All for Val to see life from the other side before he claimed his birth right, according to his now dead grandfather and Bull Senior. Wind rustles and snow softly touches and dissolves on the double-glazed panes. It is all I can do to stop myself putting my hand against the glass to touch the flakes as we once did when happy all those years ago.
***
Three sumptuous sofas, with a muted pattern of light yellow and green Regency stripes, form three sides of a square facing the glowing fireplace. A score of large thick candles, set in a dozen transparent glass vases, are spread on the floor around the walls, lacing the air with a tinge of lavender. As I bend to sniff the scent I look up to see the slightest of smirks from Ms Baker quickly extinguished.
Recessed lighting, dimmed to give the slightest of lemon glows to all and highlight various bouquets of flowers and a mound of hydrangeas, add to the textured harmony of the whole room. No doubt prescribed by the latest trendy Feng Shui notions of balanced spirits in the home. Sadly, my plan is to upset that.
A large wooden coffee table sits low slung before the sofas. Two maids appear, crisp and pristine in black skirt and white blouse, mid heel shoes and black tights, to place coffee, tea and pastries in position.
Ms Baker leaves as a procession enters with silent efficiency and arranges itself in concentric circles in drilled deference to the palatial thrones of the three central sofas. Two suited and booted, large and muscular security men are first, scanning, checking, assessing us and the surroundings, noticeably carrying weapons, as one settles by the main doors, the other at a back window by me.
Four startlingly attractive young women, all dressed in grey jackets and skirts, come next and form the outer ring. Possible fashion models, if they were not undoubtedly graduates of the world’s top business schools, they whisper into microphones in place by their mouths, eyes glued to fast changing tables and graphs on their smart phones and tablets. These couture figures of finance stand busy behind the sofas.
Then comes a small neat man of sixty, alert like a ferret, who introduces himself as Aleisteir Crowley, D’Eynscourte Bank senior counsel and chief of staff. His accent is an intriguing mix of Scotland’s sharpness and American bland. Chuck Adams, the Head of Security is a Princeton graduate, former US Navy Seal before he entered the world of US Intelligence and then the private sector, according to the thin and heavily redacted file we hold in my old department. Both smile without meaning and offer handshakes without warmth to me, ignoring the two DCs.
These two are important, they stand in attendance at each end of the large sofa facing the fire place, no doubt where the pair known locally as Lord and Lady Macbeth enthrone. As we drove in Whittle had explained to Fenwick the terrible demise of that tragic Shakespearean couple. The lawyer notes our warrant card details as Whittle does the introductions; Adams asks if he can take stills of the cards and I shake my head.
Hierarchy rules here. I have read that rune right at least. I can see Whittle drinking all this in, on the edge of laughter as she catches Fenwick’s awe as we await the grand entrance.
I signalled positions as we entered. Tom is by the fireplace, no doubt heating up nicely near the flames. Marcia hovers to the far side by the piano so as to have a different view. I continue to roam. The underlings say nothing then, nor we.
***
No one misses the entrance of Mrs Rebecca Hakluyt, a beguiling figure who slips in a far door, returns the smiles of all present, almost floats across the room and sits quietly at the centre of the main sofa facing and ten yards distant from the fire.
The staff are relaxed yet alert. She glances a longing look at a pile of books at her feet and gives a reluctant smile as all three police dutifully approach and shake hands with her as Crowley introduces us and Adams is nonchalantly alert. No one quite curtsies or bows. She sits primly, legs crossed, eyes lost in the room.
At the lady’s bidding Whittle sits in the middle of the second sofa to the lady’s right hand side, notebook at th
e ready. Save for the static of the security men’s earphones and muted words through the women’s iPad earpieces, nothing is said as I survey this tableau having returned to the rear window ten yards away. Spotlights have just sprung on to illuminate a hundred yards all around the house, with two more security guards flitting in the shadows outside. Quietly the curtains hum and close at all the windows and the room is suddenly at one with the flickering light of its original times of banquets, balls and etiquette.
The double doors from the vast hall way break open then to herald Charles Hakluyt, the man of the house, perhaps of the hour.
Cliché perhaps but he genuinely is Henry VIII in his prime, before corpulence overwhelmed, as he stands with eyes only for his wife, before striding quickly, softly to bend over her. A peck on the cheek is received without response before he turns unabashed to us, agile like the rugby forward he had possibly been from the scar and slightly twisted nose and left ear.
Tall and solid, Charles Hakluyt is an imposing figure, statesmanlike some might say, with swept back strawberry blonde hair, laced with silvery grey above his ears, piercing unblinking eyes and an air of unstoppable energy. Even if shades of fat are appearing on the stomach and jowls, his barrel like chest and broad muscular shoulders and arms show that he would still be well capable of heaving large boxes and loads in a street market for his father’s fruit and veg business that his brothers still run in London’s East End. His hairy hands are finely manicured, though noticeably over large even for his big frame. It is so obvious that the handshake will be tactically brutal but he offers none, makes no greeting beyond a bare nod as Whittle stands and makes our introductions.
He is dressed in an expensively cut dark business suit, open necked light blue shirt without tie and sparkling black shoes that reflect the large glittering watch that screams its unimaginable price and uniqueness. He looks at this now, checking a myriad of circles on it, receiving a nod from one of the Personal Assistants as he looks at her.
His wife feigns not to notice as he sits and goes to take her hand while she avoids his move, shifting away a few inches on pretence of adjusting her position. The deliberate distance between them, her not liking his possessive hand on her arm, are clues in the photograph seemingly born out. We will see.
His face does not change at the subtle snub, but his attention reverts fully to us then. I am still ten yards away at the back window but can see his dead fish eyes roam expertly up and down Whittle’s body from top to toe, assessing, calculating her sexually in the way some men do as she takes her seat again after standing at his entrance. So, this is what a top international banker and businessman looks like, a sexual predator, a visual groper.
It is unlikely to be just looking either as he has wealth, standing, power and the air of someone who acts on his inclinations and expects every wish to be fulfilled. Whittle appears not to notice. A stunningly attractive young woman, even in the subdued dark business suit, boots and burgundy blouse she is wearing today, she must endure such attention daily.
I stand, observing this unspoken interplay with my DC as the man arranges himself beside his wife on the large central sofa, looks at the almost full coffee jug and barks loudly, “Coffee. Fresh.”
The coffee is only minutes old and totally untouched but he wants a new pot? One of the assistants slips away to instruct the maids.
Whittle, as instructed, sits close to the Hakluyts and takes the lead, thanking them for agreeing to see us, for allowing our forensics to check their vehicles as is being done now and granting us permission to talk to their staff. Her aplomb with such platitudes is admirable. We are informed they have no CCTV footage of the gates or roadway for the time in question, their staff have checked.
“Thank you, all routine but it has to be done,” Marcia says smoothly as the lady watches her with an unreadable smile, and the man of the house treats this servility as his natural due.
51
American playwright Arthur Miller had a guiding mantra for his writing: ‘See the human.’ I like his plays and the saying; it comes in handy in police work too. I shared it with Parsons once, and she remembered it wrongly as Henry not Arthur. Still, the point holds. Character is key. Observe and read the individual strengths and weaknesses, identify what drives them and what they fear.
From that, you build the relationship with them and then home in on weaknesses, you play up strengths, mock feelings, leaning whether soft or hard to get them to talk to you openly, to tell their story, reveal their life situation whether they recognise it for themselves or not. Even if you do not know the point of leverage immediately, you quickly work it out. It’s not cruel. Witnesses, suspects, they all want to talk really. The ACC always says: ‘They long to tell the truth, to feel clean.’ Whether key formal interviews at the station, or the briefest of questioning anywhere, think the same, ‘see the human’.
Then? Go for the jugular.
You may be sympathetic, challenging, forceful, willing to negotiate, menacing, rude, down to earth, clever, humble, whatever plays best to get a result within the rules with that individual. You might be in one mode and suddenly intensify or go gentle with questioning depending upon what is emerging. I had persuaded my old squad of this approach at all times. Henry Miller was a standing joke. However, they always used it, because it worked. Perhaps they still do. Who knows?
If it works with a pauper, or ordinary folk, then it will with SPs or Special Protectees, the uber rich and powerful. Even with this man Hakluyt, who clearly regards himself as ‘untouchable,’ having seen such arrogance before with purely local big-wigs in their limited sphere of life. There is not a hint of humility, perhaps even of humanity here, as yet.
The man himself sits back in the deep sofa, moves close to his wife, knee touching knee, his right arm around her in a protective or possessive or controlling gesture. I am not sure which.
He notices DC Whittle looking enviously at his watch as instructed, the same one his wrist flaunted in the magazine photograph. She really is a good actor. It flashes markedly in the light now as he stands and strides over to hold his wrist up for her to see up close, and proudly pronounces it a Breguet.
Reverentially explaining, “A conjuror in clockwork, a horological genius, the world’s greatest ever watchmaker, still accepted as such today two centuries later, his firm still craftsmen of the highest order as with this.”
“It is eighteen-carat yellow gold, self-winding movement with date, power reserve indicator, phases and age of the moon. A balanced spring and lever in silicon, with silvered gold dials, hand engraved in a rose engine. Sapphire case back.”
He is lost and alone now with his thoughts as his large right hand delicately caresses the watch face, his voice ethereal, “The distinctive numerals that Breguet himself designed against a pure white round face …. Arabic, perfect proportion, delicate flourishes, size, width, depth, so perfectly formed, elegant ….”
“Art, craft, beauty beyond price”
***
“Worth a King’s ransom too,” I say loudly, bluntly in dismissal, having come to stand close during his oration. From his file, I know that provision has been made for various such watches that travel with him, estimated at over a million pounds in total.
I notice an odour and Whittle comments later that a waft of some delightful musk radiates from Hakluyt as he pointed to his watch face’s outline. She was also aghast that the watch was likely worth at least ten years of her salary.
The man is still in his reverie, “Centuries old crafts, all made by hand, and at the touch of a button the four hundred tiny parts synchronize.”
Whittle nods in genuine appreciation as the man beams, returning to sit beyond his wife whose apology is all sharp disdain, “Sorry, DC Whittle, was it? Hak’s horology, his work, China, their medieval pottery are my husband’s passions. He can get obsessive. Boring. On all of them.”
To me, now standing a couple of yards in front of her she says quietly, her voice a lulling tinkle,
“O reason, not the need.”
I almost smile at King Lear’s defence of superfluities in life.
Before she can respond, or her husband can react to this moment of intimacy between us and dismissal of himself that he clearly understands, the two matching maids return, young, pretty, all bobbed hair now I see them close up, carrying fresh coffee and begin filling everyone a cup and asking about cream and sugar. My people and I say no, only the Hakluyts say yes.
A silence falls then as this process is going on. Whittle notices and laughs at the debrief later, ‘Fickle are men, he only stayed true to me for minutes.’ Mrs Hakluyt also notes the husband’s slight leer at the curvy local girl as she bends over, skirt taut to posterior flesh and thigh, while she is placing his coffee on the table in front of him.
The girl colours and departs, the wife is stony faced, white as marble and ignores her husband even as she delicately sips her own coffee. The words of Samuel Pepys describing Charles II’s notoriously corrupt and lecherous court come to mind: ‘all was lust and gain.’ Much tension is abroad.
I let the moment simmer before my words are jagged shards as the candles flutter in a sudden draught, “A young woman is dead. Killed horribly. Near here. She deserves better. And all we can give her now is justice.”
Before the deliberately curt and belated afterthought, “Not a jolly coffee party. Sir, Madam.”
A tremor goes through the room, the Personal Assistants cease to view their screens, the lawyer straightens, the security men go on alert, the Head of Security’s face is deeper granite than previously. Only the lady of the house approves, it seems, a smile crinkling her face if only for a moment.
Hakluyt puts his coffee aside, nods, claps his hands and the two security men plus the women assistants all depart, “Sorry, a woman has died and we are drinking coffee, and I for one am thinking of champagne later - a long hard few days, Detective Chief Inspector. Forgive us, me.”
Bitter Pastoral_A DCI Caleb Cade Crime Thriller of rural Ancaster County. Page 31
