Suddenly at Home

by Graham Ison

  ‘I was hoping that your husband might be here, Lydia. It’s possible he might know something about Richard Cooper that would help us.’

  ‘I’m a widow.’ Lydia spoke in matter-of-fact tones without turning to face me.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ I was furious with myself for jumping to the conclusion that a woman wouldn’t be living alone in an apartment this expensive. Gail Sutton, my now ex-girlfriend, would have described my assumption as sexist and a typical example of male chauvinism, and I suppose she would have been right.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Lydia said.

  ‘How long have you been widowed?’ I asked, once she had seated herself and poured the tea.

  ‘The accident was just over a year ago, so I’m just about getting used to the single life again.’

  ‘Again?’ I queried without thinking.

  ‘Of course. I wasn’t born married,’ said Lydia with a twinkle in her eye as she smiled.

  ‘I think I’d better give up.’

  ‘Good idea. But as I was saying, I was always telling Geoff – my husband – that he drove his beloved Aston Martin too fast, and he came to grief on the A12 the other side of Colchester, on his way back from the marina near Lowestoft. That’s where he kept the yacht which, incidentally, he’d called Lydia, in attempt to win me round I suppose.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ I said again, attempting to atone for my blunder.

  ‘You needn’t be, Mr Brock. We’d argued for most of the nineteen years of our married life. And to save you the trouble of working it out,’ she said, shooting me another cheeky smile, ‘I was married when I was eighteen and I’m now thirty-eight. And marrying that young was probably the mistake. Certainly the marriage was a mistake. Geoff was twelve years older than me, but it was his obsession with boats that really forced us apart because I had no real interest in them. In fact, I hated them.’

  ‘I’m not very keen on them either,’ I said, ‘unless they have stabilizers and a crew of several hundred.’

  Lydia laughed at my lame attempt to lighten the conversation. ‘On one occasion we sailed all the way from Lowestoft to Erquy, in Brittany. Can you imagine it? I was sick practically all the way over, but when I’d recovered we went shopping and I saw the Breton sweater – the one I was wearing the other day – and told Geoff I liked it, so he bought it for me. In fact, he bought me two or three. Of course he thought it was an indication that I’d at last fallen in love with sailing.’ She sighed, leaned forward and finished her tea. ‘Another cup?’

  ‘Please.’

  Handing me my tea, she continued with her life story. ‘He insisted on spending every spare moment on that wretched boat and we had some fearful arguments about it. It’s ironic that he’d eventually seen sense, and was on his way back from the marina having at last sold the damned thing to a Russian millionaire.’ She paused again. ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been moored nearer, somewhere on the south coast, say, but it was such an awful drive going to Suffolk and back every weekend. It’s just as well I wasn’t with him when he had his accident, but it had got to the point where I just refused to go any more. Even though I’ve heard that yachtsmen on their own very often make up their crew with shapely blonde bimbos, I’d reached the point where I no longer cared.’

  ‘Did you have any children?’

  ‘No. Geoff didn’t want any, not again.’

  ‘Not again?’ I wondered if there was some hidden tragedy here.

  ‘You would have thought that he’d learned his lesson after the first time. He’d been married before and had a daughter, but he crashed his car and they were both killed: wife and daughter. He told me later that it wasn’t his fault. Whether it was or not, I don’t know, but he always drove too fast. What’s more, I didn’t know that he was a widower until after we were married. Then as I said just now I was only eighteen, and I was very naive.’

  ‘About Richard Cooper, Lydia,’ I prompted, determined to steer her away from telling me any more of her marital and maritime history. ‘What can you tell me about him?’

  ‘Very little, actually. He moved in about a year ago, it must have been, but I rarely saw him. I did ask him in for a drink when he first arrived – a sort of welcoming gesture – but he declined. He was very polite about it and said he was extremely busy. To be honest, I hardly know any of the people here. They tend to keep themselves to themselves.’

  ‘Did Mr Cooper say what he did for a living?’

  ‘No, and I didn’t ask. Well, one doesn’t. He was always very civil whenever we met in the hall or in the pool. He’d pass the time of day, but he never started a conversation.’

  ‘Are you talking about the pool down below, Lydia?’

  ‘Yes, that one. As a matter of fact, I often saw him down there.’

  ‘You’re a keen swimmer, then?’

  ‘I thought it would be a good idea to learn to swim well in case I ever fell overboard from Geoff’s damned boat, so I took lessons from a professional. Then I found I really enjoyed it and I’ve kept it up ever since. That was one of the attractions of moving in here, the availability of a private pool.’

  ‘Did you ever see Mr Cooper with the young man who knocked on your door yesterday after he’d found Mr Cooper’s body?’

  ‘No, but I often saw Mr Cooper with a young woman down at the pool.’

  ‘Does this woman live in Cockcroft Lodge, d’you know?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Lydia. ‘There are a lot of people living in these three blocks.’

  ‘Have you any idea who she was?’

  ‘No, no idea I’m afraid. But she was tall, about my height I should think. I’m five ten and she was more or less the same as me. She had a good figure, too, and was a strong swimmer. I wish I could do the crawl as fast as she does.’

  ‘Can you think of any resident who it might be?’ It was possible that Lydia was describing Chantal Flaubert, who the concierge had mentioned as being a holder of one of the non-residents passes to use the pool.

  ‘It could be Mrs Webb, in Apartment A on the ground floor. She’s always down there in her bikini making eyes at the men. But, of course, the young woman doesn’t have to live here. The residents are allowed to give pool passes to two of their friends, so she could’ve been anyone.’ Lydia paused. ‘I suppose it could have been Mrs Webb wearing a wig. Women are very good at disguise when it comes to adultery.’

  And that made me wonder if it was something that Lydia had practised herself. ‘Yes, I know about the passes. The concierge told me.’

  ‘I haven’t used mine. I don’t have any friends living near enough to make use of them. In fact, for some time now I’ve been thinking of moving, and this murder has finally made up my mind.’

  ‘Where are you thinking of going, Lydia?’

  ‘I’d like a house of my own rather than a flat, and ideally one with a pool. I’ve been considering Strand-on-the-Green or somewhere in that area, but I doubt that there’s anything there that has what I want. I don’t like this flat very much, but it was Geoff’s choice and he was into this minimalist nonsense. Despite all my efforts, it still looks Spartan! It’s no secret that Geoff left me well provided for, so I can afford what I like, more or less.’

  ‘What was his profession?’ I asked.

  Lydia chuckled. ‘He was what they call “something in the City”. Actually, he was in the futures market and made a hell of a lot of money doing it. And he was insured up to the hilt when he died. All in all, I’m extremely well off. In fact, embarrassingly so considering that we hardly spoke to each other in the months before his death.’ She sounded sad at having to admit it.

  ‘You shouldn’t really tell people that, Lydia, or you’ll find yourself besieged by fortune hunters.’

  ‘I haven’t told anybody before, but you’re a policeman, so I can trust you.’ But she laughed as she said it. ‘Can’t I?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it,’ I said, thinking of a few coppers I wouldn’t trust as far as I coul
d throw a grand piano. ‘Thanks for the tea.’ I stood up and handed her one of my cards. ‘If you think of anything else, I’d be grateful if you’d give me a ring.’

  ‘I certainly will,’ said Lydia, and smiled. I had the feeling that she’d ring me anyway, whether she had any information or not.

  ‘By the way, was there a wall safe installed in this apartment when you moved in?’

  ‘A wall safe?’ Lydia raised her eyebrows. ‘No, why should there be?’

  I returned to Cooper’s apartment in time to see the locksmith departing.

  ‘Have you found anything interesting, Kate?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘Our victim is a Belgian, guv, and his name is Dirk Cuyper.’ Kate Ebdon put an open passport on the table. The photograph was quite clearly that of Richard Cooper.

  I picked up the document and had a good look at it. ‘So Cuyper, alias Cooper, was thirty-eight years of age,’ I said, ‘and was born in somewhere called Poperinge, wherever that is.’

  ‘It’s a small town a few miles from Ypres, otherwise known as Ieper, guv,’ said Dave.

  ‘Isn’t that where that suit came from? The one in his wardrobe.’

  ‘That’s the one, Harry,’ said Linda Mitchell, now quite at ease using my first name.

  ‘Well, well! What is a Belgian doing in North Sheen masquerading as Richard Cooper, who was in fear of his life and finished up being murdered?’

  ‘Looks like a trip to Belgium, guv,’ said Dave hopefully. ‘Shall I give Colin Wilberforce a ring and ask him if he can locate someone in the Belgian police that we can talk to?’

  ‘We may have to go to Belgium eventually, Dave, but we won’t get in touch with the Belgian police just yet. Not until we have something more concrete to tell them. All we know so far is that we’ve got a dead man in an expensive apartment in North Sheen, and no explanation for any of it. No, we’ll wait.’

  ‘There was some sort of identity document in the safe, too, Harry,’ said Linda. ‘It was in an envelope together with a typed note.’ She handed me the two items. ‘But they’re both in Dutch. Or now we know the victim is a Belgian, I suppose it’s Flemish. I think the only difference is a dialectic one.’

  I glanced at the words on the official-looking card that bore a photograph of Cuyper: De drager Dirk Cuyper is een politieagent die aan de Federale Politie.

  ‘Good God!’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t profess to understand this language, but two words jump out at me: Federale Politie.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ exclaimed Dave. ‘He’s a copper.’

  ‘It looks like it, Dave.’ I scanned the note. ‘I don’t understand any of this, but there are some words here that do make sense, even though it’s in Dutch or Flemish or whatever. It mentions a Commissaris Pim de Jonker, and there’s a telephone number.’

  Dave immediately pulled out his mobile. ‘Shall I ring this Commissaris bloke, guv?’

  ‘No, not yet. We’ll get this note translated before we do any telephoning, otherwise we might be taking a leap in the dark.’

  ‘There were some letters in the safe, too, Harry,’ said Linda. ‘They’re written in Dutch or Flemish and are all signed Margreet – who I imagine is Cuyper’s wife or girlfriend – and come from an address in Ieper. They’re not written by the same women who wrote the other correspondence we found earlier.’

  ‘It looks as though we’ve got some work to do on Monday,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, Dave, get that photograph of Cuyper, alias Cooper, copied and circulated to all the hotels in the vicinity. See if anyone recognizes him as someone who stayed there for a week or two. Assuming, of course, that what Dennis Jones told us is the truth. But I have to say that I’ve got doubts about him and his statement.’

  ‘There was also a laptop computer in the safe, but it’s password-protected and I can’t get into it,’ said Linda.

  ‘I know just the lad to do that,’ I said, thinking of Lee Jarvis, who had been of great help when we were investigating the murder of the actor Lancelot Foley. ‘Dave, give Colin Wilberforce a bell and ask him to organize that, will you? And at the same time ask him to find out if there’s anyone in the Interpol office who speaks Dutch or Flemish. Oh, and ask him to arrange the translation of the letters that were found in the safe.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘Once you’ve done that, I think it’s time we spoke to Dennis Jones’s ex-girlfriend.’

  Judy Simmons was the name of Jones’s ex and she lived in a flat not far from Richmond Park. Fortunately she was at home when we arrived.

  ‘Miss Simmons?’

  ‘That’s me.’ I guessed that she was about twenty-five, and she was painfully thin with lank blonde hair and glasses. She was shrewd enough to keep a firm hold on the edge of her front door.

  ‘We’re police officers from the Murder Investigation Team at Scotland Yard, Miss Simmons.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Pull the other one.’ She glanced suspiciously at Dave and me, and took in his stocky figure and the fact that he was black. The look was one of extreme scepticism. ‘What are you selling?’

  ‘I can assure you we are police officers,’ I said, and we each showed her our warrant card.

  ‘Oh! Sorry. What’s it about, then?’

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock and this is Detective Sergeant Poole. We’d like to talk to you about Dennis Jones.’

  ‘Don’t tell me the creep has been murdered.’

  This did not bode well. ‘No, Miss Simmons, but a so-called friend of his has been.’

  ‘You’d better come in, then.’

  We sat down in her cramped sitting-room-cum-kitchen, made even smaller because an ironing board was standing in one corner with a pile of unironed clothes on it.

  ‘What’s this about Dennis and a murdered friend, then? I didn’t think he had any friends.’

  ‘When we were questioning him,’ I began, ‘he volunteered the information that you and he had just split up.’ That wasn’t strictly true, of course. Dave had insisted upon the information.

  ‘Split up?’ Judy Simmons laughed derisively. ‘We were never together.’

  ‘He assured us that he’d been in a relationship with you, Miss Simmons.’

  ‘In his dreams,’ she scoffed. ‘I went out with him twice and that was once too often. Dennis Jones thinks he’s God’s gift to women, but not to put too fine a point on it, he’s a pathetic wimp.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’ asked Dave.

  Judy gazed thoughtfully at Dave. ‘The last time I saw him must’ve been at least four months ago,’ she said eventually. ‘I met him at a health club – it’s closed down now – and stupidly agreed to go out with him. It was more or less all right, but I should’ve knocked it on the head there and then. Unfortunately, I foolishly went on a second date a week later. It was dire. He took me for a meal in some cheap restaurant – well, café really – and expected me to go halves. So I told him what to do with the bill.’ She chuckled at the recollection. ‘He blinked. Then the cheeky sod asked me if I’d like to move in with him in some flat in Petersham!’

  I laughed. ‘I take it you refused, Miss Simmons.’

  ‘Too bloody right I did. I told him what he could do with his proposition in no uncertain terms,’ she said, and using both hands pushed her hair back and tucked it behind her ears.

  ‘Did he ever mention a man called Richard Cooper?’

  ‘Not that I recall.’

  ‘Cooper apparently used the same health club where you met Jones, or more particularly the pool there.’

  Judy shook her head. ‘Doesn’t mean a thing,’ she said.

  ‘Did he tell you what he did for a living?’ Dave asked, knowing that Kate Ebdon had had reservations about his claim to have worked in an advertising agency.

  ‘No, he never mentioned it. And I certainly wasn’t interested enough in him to ask.’

  ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Simmons. Sorry to have troubled you.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll tell you this, though. Dennis Jones is not a murderer. He wouldn�
�t even have the guts to kill a fly.’

  There are times when Dr Henry Mortlock can be extremely perverse, and today was one of those occasions. He had arranged to do the post-mortem examination of Richard Cooper at half past five that evening.

  As was so often the case, Mortlock’s perversity extended even further. I arrived at twenty-five past five to find that he had already completed the examination.

  ‘That’s what you’re looking for, Harry.’ Mortlock pointed to a couple of 9mm rounds in a kidney-shaped bowl. ‘Straight into the heart. Either you’re looking for a marksman or a bloody lucky shot. But that’s your problem. I’ve done my bit.’

  I took possession of the fatal bullets, and after Mortlock and I had signed all the necessary bits of paper I returned to Belgravia. There, I handed the rounds to Wilberforce. We signed more pieces of paper and I told him to get them to the ballistics laboratory as soon as possible.

  I was in the office at nine o’clock on Sunday morning, but Wilberforce was there ahead of me. He seems to have an insatiable appetite for work once we have a murder enquiry up and running.

  ‘I’ve spoken to the duty officer in the Interpol office this morning, sir, and he’s been in touch with their Dutch speaker.’ Wilberforce picked up a piece of paper. ‘The note that was found with the ID document reads: In the event of an emergency, Commissaris Pim de Jonker should be contacted on … Then there’s a Belgian telephone number for somewhere in Poperinge, sir, and the note goes on to say it is imperative that no other officer but Commissaris de Jonker should be spoken to. We’ve run a check on the number, sir, but details of the subscriber are withheld. In the circumstances, I thought it unwise to take the matter any further.’

  ‘You were quite right, Colin. According to his passport, Poperinge is where Dirk Cuyper was born,’ I said. ‘See if you can get me that number.’