by Graham Ison
This was a good start. Kat Thompson was obviously one of those vain criminals who could not help boasting. I hoped that she would also boast about her marksmanship with a pistol.
In her role as Katherine Thompson, former health-club manager, she had been very convincing when we’d interviewed her on the day she was moving out of her flat in Ham. She had been confident and not at all disconcerted when we had arrived and started asking questions about the murder of Dirk Cuyper. Maybe she thought that by telling us she was moving to Thames Ditton, when she knew she was not, she assumed she could not be found. She’d certainly tried to avoid capture.
What really amazed me about this woman was the complete volte-face I was now witnessing. When Dave and I had interviewed her previously, she’d been polite, open and not at all aggressive, apart from mildly berating the removal men, and had even gone as far as gently flirting with me, albeit just the once.
But I now realized that she was a consummate professional assassin, entirely devoid of conscience and convinced that she could outwit the police and retain her liberty. If only we’d had the evidence that would have justified us searching her and her flat on that occasion, we might have prevented the murders of Victor Downs and Ram Mookjai. And more importantly, the senseless killing of John Appleby.
‘I’m not going to talk my way out of killing that copper, am I?’ Thompson asked suddenly.
‘I very much doubt it,’ I said cautiously.
‘So what’ll I get for that?’
‘I don’t know, Kat,’ I said, even though I had a very good idea. ‘It’s up to the judge.’
‘Oh come on, Brocky darling. Don’t piss me about. What’s the going rate?’ Puckering her sensuous lips, Thompson blew me another kiss.
I was about to give another cautious answer when Kate spoke. ‘Let me put it this way, mate: I don’t reckon you’ll need to buy a new frock for at least thirty years.’ She knew just how to put coquettish women in their place.
‘That’s what I thought. You could have told me that, Brocky, instead of letting your little Aboriginal friend open her big mouth.’
If she’d thought that an insulting comment of that nature would incite Kate to an act of violence, she was disappointed. Kate stared at her, smiled a smile that conveyed just a hint of pity and slowly shook her head. Having been the occasional recipient of one of those smiles, I knew just how indicative of disapproval they could be, carrying as they did an implication similar to Dave’s use of the word ‘sir’.
‘Well now, Brocky,’ continued Thompson, ‘supposing I were to give you chapter and verse on the whole of Vic Downs’s empire and tell you what Dirk Cuyper and his gang were up to, d’you reckon that might chop a substantial bit off the sentence? Cut it to twenty, say, and parole after ten?’
‘You should know that I can’t make any promises, Kat. What I can do is to advise the Crown Prosecution Service of the extent of any assistance you’ve afforded to the police.’ I had no intention of forgetting that this conniving bitch had cold-bloodedly murdered one of my officers. However, if she was about to give me valuable information, I would have to avoid alienating her, even to the extent of sweet-talking her. With any luck, we’d get the best of both worlds. In common with the rest of the team, I wanted to see her serve a full life sentence without parole.
‘Is that a long-winded way of saying you’ll float the idea?’
‘If you like,’ I said.
At some time during our talk, Thompson had surreptitiously undone the top few buttons of her pyjama jacket so that it fell open to display more than was seemly.
But Kate had spotted what she’d done and knew why she’d done it. ‘I should do those buttons up, sport, or you’ll catch your bloody death of cold.’
‘If I confess to the other murders, it won’t add any more to the sentence, will it, Brocky dear? I mean, it’ll be concurrent, won’t it?’ Thompson ignored Kate’s comments and left the buttons undone.
‘Once again you’re asking me questions that only the judge at your trial can answer, Kat.’
‘If he spent an hour in my cell with me, I might persuade him.’
‘You might get a woman judge, mate,’ said Kate.
‘Even that might work.’ This time, Thompson blew a kiss in Kate’s direction. ‘Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.’ She leaned across and filled a tumbler with water from a jug, grimacing as she put a strain on her injured shoulder. ‘Here we go, then. Yes, I murdered Dirk Cuyper and Vic Downs. Unfortunately poor little Ram would have been a witness, so I’m afraid he had to go too. What you might call collateral damage.’
Over the years I’d met some callous criminals, but Kat Thompson, alias Chantal Flaubert, was fairly near the top of the list in terms of cold-bloodedness.
‘Do you want to tell me why?’ Her admission, recorded on tape, meant that I now had sufficient to charge her with those three murders. And that precluded me from asking any more questions, dammit. However, there was nothing to stop me from inviting her to explain her motives; and if she declined, that was that. ‘If you tell me everything you know, I may have to ask you some questions, Kat, to clear up times and places and any other ambiguities. Are you prepared to answer such questions?’
‘I’ll answer anything you want to ask, Brocky dear, if that’ll help to cut my sentence. You will tell them how helpful I’ve been, won’t you?’
‘Go ahead, then, Kat,’ I said, without committing myself.
‘Vic Downs was the mastermind. He owned brothels all over London and beyond, and he owned the women he put in them. They’d usually been smuggled in from abroad, Romania and the Ukraine mainly, but some Syrians and Turks as well. Then the Belgians decided to muscle in big time on the London scene, and that upset Vic.’
‘But you’re a Belgian,’ said Kate. ‘Did you have divided loyalties?’
‘It’s true I’m a Belgian, but I wouldn’t have anything to do with their set-up. I knew which side my bread was buttered. Anyway, Vic didn’t like foreigners interfering in his enterprise and that was good enough for me.’ Kat paused to chuckle. ‘He didn’t like them grabbing a piece of the action. In fact, he was hopping mad. Well, Vic had snouts in every trough and those informants very soon sussed out that it was Dirk Cuyper, and Pim de Jonker back in Ypres, who were behind it all.’
‘How did you know about de Jonker?’
‘Dirk told me everything, including the secret address. I even threw a spanner in the works by sending de Jonker a list of names, pretending they came from Dirk.’
‘As a matter of interest, where did you get those names from, Kat?’
‘The newspaper.’ Kat chuckled at the deception she’d played on de Jonker. I wasn’t going to tell her that she’d also deceived me. Well, very nearly.
‘Cuyper and de Jonker had been smuggling women in from the Balkans and the Near East and setting them up in whorehouses throughout Belgium.’ Kat laughed outright this time. ‘The people who work at the European Union in Brussels are particularly good customers, rich too, although I daresay they claim it on expenses. Well, I’m sure the MEPs do.’
‘Oh, surely not,’ said Kate sarcastically.
‘Anyway, to cut a long story short,’ Thompson began, ‘Vic Downs wanted rid of Dirk Cuyper once they started encroaching on his territory. He had one particular nose who told him that Cuyper had started using the health club at Richmond. So Vic promptly bought it, kicked out the existing manager and put me in there to get to know Cuyper. It worked a treat. He came on to me straight away, not without my encouragement, of course. We started an affair, although it was actually me who started it, and I’ll bet he’d never had such a good ride in all his life, even though I say it myself.’ She smiled and pursed her lips at me.
‘We found some kinky gear in his wardrobe: thongs, very high-heeled shoes, whips and bondage gear. D’you know anything about that?’ asked Kate.
‘Oh yes. Dirk told me that his wife, Inge, didn’t want to know about sex, that she was dowdy a
nd had lost interest in him. So I bought that sexy gear because he needed a kick start, but once he was under way he was not bad in the sack. After that he thought he was in love with me, and he gave me a key to his flat and a pass to use the pool at Cockcroft Lodge.’
‘What went wrong, then?’ I asked.
‘Someone in the Flemish camp found out that I was part of Vic Downs’s empire and intended to kill Cuyper.’ Thompson gave an expressive shrug, and winced again. ‘So Vic said Cuyper had to be eliminated. Permanently. Before his lot eliminated me. But in the meantime Cuyper’s bottle went and he moved into a hotel.’
‘How did you know he’d be returning on Friday the twenty-sixth of July at precisely one o’clock?’
‘Oh, Brocky dear. I told you, Vic had snouts. He had Cuyper followed. Vic knew exactly where he was staying and he knew whenever he moved.’
‘But it was a stroke of luck for you that Dennis Jones turned up half an hour late on that day. Otherwise you might have been caught.’
Kat adopted an expression that seemed to mock my apparent naivety. ‘Good Heavens! There wasn’t any luck involved, Brocky darling. Jones was on Downs’s payroll. Being a school teacher, he needed the money. Anyway, I think it gave him an orgasm just to know that he was on the fringe of something involving sex, pathetic little wimp. He was bloody sex mad was Jones.’
‘Why was he there?’ asked Kate. ‘What was the plan?’
‘Jones isn’t as daft as he looks. He was the one keeping an eye on Cuyper, having befriended him at the club. He actually arrived with Cuyper, and I arrived a few minutes later. The idea was that once I’d done the job and vanished, Jones would wait till one thirty and then call on a neighbour and raise the alarm. He had to tell everyone that he’d turned up at half past one and spin this yarn about Cuyper being scared witless over some anonymous woman who was out to kill him.’ Kat smiled. ‘And that was true, of course.’
‘Are you telling me that Jones witnessed you murdering Cuyper?’ I asked.
Kat smiled. ‘Yes, and I thought he was going to be sick. It might just have been all right if he hadn’t gone bonkers and started screwing one of his schoolgirls. That’s when you showed up and nicked him, Brocky, and I suppose he squealed like a stuck pig and put the finger on me.’
‘No, as a matter of fact, he never said a word about you, or about Downs’s dodgy business affairs.’ I didn’t like to admit that Jones’s involvement had all come as a complete surprise. He might’ve been a wimp, but he’d completely fooled me.
‘Are you telling me he didn’t grass?’ For the first time since we’d been talking, Kat Thompson’s flamboyant confidence evaporated, albeit momentarily. ‘Then how the hell did you track me down?’
‘By your fingerprints, Kat.’
‘They’re not on record.’
‘Oh, but they are,’ I said, with a certain feeling of satisfaction. ‘When you applied for a Belgian passport, you had to provide a set of fingerprints, which went into the national database. And that’s how we knew you were involved. We found them all over Cuyper’s apartment and in Downs’s house. You left them inside Cuyper’s safe, too.’
For a long moment Kat Thompson sat in absolute silence, as she realized that she had put herself in her present predicament by applying for a Belgian passport. She eventually broke her silence with a typical British reaction.
‘Bugger!’ she said.
Kat Thompson went on for another hour and a half, listing in detail all of the late Victor Downs’s nefarious activities. Several times I was duty bound to ask her if she wished to continue or whether she was too tired. But on each occasion she opted to continue.
When she’d finished, I asked the one question that had been nagging away all the time she’d been talking.
‘Why did you murder Victor Downs, Kat?’
‘Haven’t you worked it out, Brocky darling? The bastard was having me over, and not only in bed. After I’d killed Cuyper for Vic, I suggested that it was about time he gave me a half share in the enterprise. After all, I was the one taking all the risks while he was sitting up in Hampstead without a stain on his character. What’s more, I wasn’t sure that I’d get away with murdering Cuyper. I had intended to hide away in Somerset, but then that poacher who lived opposite came beetling across the road and told me that your lot had been making enquiries. That was good enough for me, and I asked Vic to buy me a place in Mexico and fix me up with a new identity, new passport and everything. But he refused and just laughed. So I said I’d make my own arrangements, but I’d come back for one last tumble just for old time’s sake. He was ready and waiting, naked and on top of the bed. But like I said, it was a shame that poor little Ram was there.’
‘Why did you return to Cuyper’s flat at Cockcroft Lodge?’ asked Kate. ‘The day you murdered our officer.’
‘I wanted Cuyper’s laptop. I knew he kept it in the safe, but I didn’t have time to get it the day I murdered him. There was bound to be stuff on there that would incriminate Vic, and therefore me too. I knew the combination to the safe and I knew you guys wouldn’t be able to get into it. And even if you did, I knew you wouldn’t be able to break the password and hack into the laptop. So, I waited until you’d packed up and gone home – at least I thought you’d all gone – and paid a visit. I didn’t know that some of your people were still there.’
‘I’ve got news for you, mate,’ said Kate. ‘Our locksmith did open the safe and our computer expert did open the laptop for us.’
‘So you found out everything about us, I suppose.’ Kat Thompson made the statement with a resigned expression.
‘No, Kat,’ I said. ‘There was nothing on it. It’d been wiped clean.’ That wasn’t true, of course, but I didn’t see any harm in a little disinformation designed to discomfit. ‘One last question, what did you do with Cuyper’s mobile phone?’ I was convinced that no one else could be responsible for its absence.
‘It’s at the bottom of the Thames if you feel like looking for it, Brocky dear.’
The funeral of Detective Constable John Appleby was held two days later at Pinner Parish Church, close to where he’d lived with his wife, Patricia, since their marriage five years previously.
The Metropolitan Police has always been good at ceremonial, probably because there is so much of it in the capital. At a quarter to eleven a black limousine escorted by two outriders stopped outside the fourteenth-century church. The Commissioner, in uniform as befitted the occasion, alighted and strode quickly up the path. Two constables standing either side of the church door saluted as he entered. As other cars arrived, more of the Yard’s senior officers joined the congregation, and I was pleased to see that Mark Hodgson, the concierge at Cockcroft Lodge, was also there.
Next to arrive were the families. Patricia Appleby, all in black, was flanked by her mother and father, and followed by John’s sister and their parents.
All my team were there without exception. Kate Ebdon immaculate in black suit and tights, high heels and a small pillbox hat with a veil. Dave Poole, never regarded as one of the smartest dressers, had made a real effort and wore a suit, a white shirt and, in common with all the men, a black tie. I imagine that his wife, Madeleine, had inspected him before he left home.
At eleven o’clock precisely the hearse arrived under escort and stopped in Church Road. Six pallbearers, all constables supervised by a sergeant, bore the coffin into the church. As was customary on these occasions, it was covered by the Metropolitan Police standard. The church bell began its solitary funereal toll, and somewhere a police trumpeter sounded the ‘Last Post’.
The Commissioner delivered the eulogy and paid a sincere tribute to John Appleby, even though he had never heard of the detective until informed of his murder. But in all fairness, he couldn’t be expected to know every one of the 30,000 officers under his command.
I have to admit that we were all rather relieved when the ceremony was over, and even more relieved to know that the cremation and the wake were to be pri
vate affairs. It was not that we were indifferent, but we all wanted to remember John Appleby as we had known him and had no desire to make embarrassed small talk with his family and friends.
EIGHTEEN
The trial of Chantal Flaubert, as the judge directed she should be called throughout the hearing, opened at the Central Criminal Court at Old Bailey on Monday the fourteenth of October.
Despite Flaubert having confessed to murdering Dirk Cuyper, Victor Downs and Ram Mookjai, the Common Serjeant of London, who was the presiding judge, ordered that pleas of not guilty be entered. When Flaubert queried this, he told her that it was common practice and designed to ensure that she had not been coerced into pleading guilty. I found that amusing. I couldn’t visualize Flaubert being coerced into doing anything she didn’t want to do.
The trial was a remarkably short one considering there were four counts of murder on the indictment. Prosecuting counsel, a stern-faced woman QC devoid of make-up and also, it seemed, devoid of a sense of humour, took me step by step through my investigation. Defence counsel tried chipping away at trivial points, but without much success. Then one after another, the prosecution witnesses followed. Henry Mortlock gave his opinion of the cause of death. The ballistics expert gave indisputable evidence about the automatic pistol recovered at the scene of Appleby’s murder and testified that it had been used in all four murders. And Linda Mitchell, the crime-scene manager, who always knew exactly what she was talking about, gave evidence with convincing sincerity. It was a mark of her professionalism because it’s easy to be blasé after so many appearances at the Old Bailey. I’ve seen it happen with police officers who get tripped up by a smart barrister because they have become careless.
