by Graham Ison
In the car going back to the Yard, Markham said, ‘You know, guv’nor, I think I feel sorry for that poor sod.’
‘I should save your sympathy, if I were you,’ said Tipper. ‘There’s more to that odious bastard than meets the eye. He might claim to be nearly broke, but he can run to a Porsche on the drive — and he didn’t get that suit at Marks and Spencer.’
‘He as good as said that his wife was financing him, guv.’
‘That’s what he said, but was she? She didn’t look the sort to shell out for him. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that he’s got another source of income from somewhere, Charlie.’ He paused as Markham negotiated the slip road on to the Kingston Bypass. ‘Don’t forget what Sheila Johnson said — that she’d done a few porn shots for Charley Godley, despite Godley’s denial. That means that Penny Lambert probably did as well. It might just be that our Mr Wallace’s secret was that he offered Penny a better deal, and he was making money out of her, too.’
‘I’ll bet his wife doesn’t know.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she did,’ said Tipper. ‘Even two civil servants’ salaries coming in doesn’t make you rich — not rich enough for a Porsche, and his sort of suits. And did you notice the Bang and Olufson stereo unit? They don’t come cheap. No, Charlie, they might have been making quite a bit out of the porn business.’
‘Well it wouldn’t be in their interests if she got murdered, would it?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning they’d be unlikely to kill the golden goose.’
‘Depends. If they’re at it, Penny won’t have been the only girl they used. But she might have been trouble. What would their reaction have been if Penny had mentioned that a word to the Department of Trade about how they earned their pin-money could do them some damage — unless they upped the ante?’ Tipper slumped down in his seat and stared gloomily out of the windscreen. ‘They struck me as a pretty unsavoury pair.’
‘It would be useful to know where they were during the weekend in question, sir,’ said Markham. ‘If they were away from home, then they’d need a few more answers than they’ve given us already.’
‘That shouldn’t be too difficult. I wouldn’t mind having a good look round their drum, either.’
‘You going to get a warrant?’ asked Markham.
‘Not yet, Charlie. There’s not really enough evidence, but I wouldn’t mind betting there’s a few cameras and floodlights upstairs in that house, and a profitable little porn business going. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that Linda Wallace was featured in a few of these naughty pictures, either.’
Markham wrinkled his nose. ‘I think she’d probably look better with her clothes on, guv,’ he said laconically.
Chapter Seven
‘If there had been a female version of Jekyll and Hyde, I reckon this Lambert woman would have qualified,’ said Tipper.
‘And there could be more,’ said Markham. ‘The most we’ve got so far stops two-and-a-half years ago, then jumps via the Foreign Office to a beach in Brittany. In between — nothing!’
Tipper nodded in a dispirited way. ‘We’ve got to fill in that gap, Charlie. Not that I think it’ll do any good, but you never know. For sure, if we don’t bother, that’s where the answer will be.’
It was then that an interesting development occurred. Fingerprint Branch identified a further mark that had been found in the flat. It belonged to the civil servant Wallace. And Wallace had claimed that he hadn’t seen Penelope Lambert for two-and-a-half years. But on the evidence of Mrs Mason — and Mallory — the girl had lived in the Wimbledon flat for only nine months. Something didn’t gel.
*
Despite the overt, macho image which Wallace was at pains to project, Tipper had gained the impression that he wasn’t a man to commit murder. But that was a dangerous presumption for a policeman to make.
‘Catch him when he comes out of the office — it’s in Victoria Street, just across the road — and take him into the nick, Charlie. When you’ve got him there, give me a ring. He needs the frighteners put on him, does Mr Wallace. I’m not having some tuppenny-ha’penny civil servant trying to have me over.’
It was twenty minutes to six when Tipper got the call from Markham to say that Wallace was in the interview room at Rochester Row Police Station — and feeling very sorry for himself.
‘Mr Wallace,’ said Tipper, swinging a chair and sitting down opposite the civil servant. ‘I am conducting a murder enquiry and I do not have time to waste listening to lies from the likes of you. So unless you want me to put you on the sheet right now for complicity in a case of murder, you’d better start telling me the truth about your association with Penelope Lambert.’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Chief Inspector. And furthermore, before I say anything, I want my solicitor here.’ Wallace leaned against the hard back of his chair and folded his arms.
Tipper smiled patiently. ‘Mr Wallace,’ he said, ‘you told me two days ago that the last time you had seen Mrs Lambert was two-and-a-half years ago — yes?’ Wallace nodded. ‘Where was that?’
‘I told you.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘When I left the flat we shared at Battersea.’
‘She was murdered about seven weeks ago. Do you know where she was living immediately before her death?’
‘No idea,’ said Wallace loftily.
‘Wimbledon.’ Tipper paused. ‘And your fingerprints were found in the flat, mister.’
Wallace unfolded his arms, and his shoulders drooped. ‘Oh!’ he said.
‘Yes — oh!’
‘I couldn’t very well tell you in front of my wife, could I?’
‘Perhaps we’d better start again then.’
‘Could I have a cigarette, please.’
‘Go ahead.’ Tipper didn’t smoke.
Wallace took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and fiddled around with his lighter. He puffed smoke towards the ceiling and then looked at Tipper. ‘That woman was irresistible — but so was Linda. She was working in my office at the time, and although I was living with Penny, things started to develop between Linda and me —’
‘And Linda owned a house and you didn’t?’
‘That was purely incidental.’
Tipper was unconvinced. ‘Go on.’
‘Eventually I had to choose. Apart from anything else, it was costing me a fortune.’ Tipper smiled. ‘I moved in with Linda, and six months later we got married.’
‘And what about Penny? You just abandoned her, I presume — at least for the time being?’
Wallace fixed his gaze on the tin lid that served as an ashtray. Finally he looked up. ‘The trouble with Penny was that she was so damned compelling. I couldn’t leave her alone. She stayed on in the Battersea flat for about six months, and I carried on seeing her.’
‘This was during the time you were living with Linda down at Surbiton, was it?’ Wallace nodded. ‘And presumably making preparations for getting married?’
‘Yes. It doesn’t sound too good, does it?’
‘I shouldn’t think that your wife would have thought too much of it,’ said Tipper drily.
‘She was so vivacious.’ Wallace carried on, almost talking to himself. ‘I told you we’d met at a party, didn’t I?’ Tipper nodded. ‘I started chatting her up straight away. I don’t know who’d invited her — didn’t care. I said I thought I recognised her, and was she an actress? That was true — I certainly thought I’d seen her before. I know it sounds hackneyed, but I really did.’
‘All right,’ said Tipper. ‘You’ve convinced me.’
‘She said no, she wasn’t an actress, but she did adverts, and that’s where I might have seen her. Then she laughed and asked me if I knew any casting directors because she was mad to get into television. I passed that off by saying that I thought I might. I didn’t tell her I was a civil servant — it’s so deadly dull. Not the sort of job that would have attracted a girl like her. Anyway I dated her
a couple of times — candle-lit dinner for two — that sort of thing. Got her into bed after only the second time.’ He spoke as though it were some kind of creditable triumph, but noted the lack of response in Tipper’s face, and went quickly on. ‘Well about the fourth time we went out she said that she was looking for somewhere to live, and did I know of anywhere. I laughingly suggested that she move in with me. To my amazement, she jumped at it. Within twenty-four hours she was installed.’
‘Did she know you were a civil servant then?’
‘No. I told her I was something in the city — an executive. Well it was partly true, except that it was in the City of Westminster, and I was a senior executive officer.’ He smiled. ‘I’m a principal now, of course.’ He said it as though it were important. ‘Funny that, in view of what she finished up doing.’
‘Which was?’
‘Working at the Foreign Office.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘It was really me who was responsible for her getting the job. I think I told you that she stayed on in the flat after I’d left —’
‘Yes,’ said Tipper, interrupting, ‘but you haven’t said why. You had a relationship with the girl — you were living together as man and wife, and then Linda appears, and off you go. How did Penelope react to that?’
‘We had a row. Not about me going. I went because of the row.’
‘What was it about?’
‘I was talking to a friend of mine — we play squash from time to time — and we were having a drink afterwards when he mentioned this girl he’d met. He told me all about her, how they were screwing regularly and what they got up to. Then he told me her name —’
‘Penelope Lambert?’
‘Yes.’
‘Didn’t he know that you were living with her?’
‘No. I didn’t tell anyone, just in case it got back to the office. I was in line for promotion then, and that might have put paid to my chances. Anyway, you can imagine. I went back to the flat and had it out with her. She just laughed and admitted it. Said I wasn’t married to her and what she did with her body was her business. So I told her, right, if that was her attitude, I could take the same stance, and what I did with my money was my affair, and that from now on I wasn’t subsidising her.’
‘What did she say to that?’
‘She said I hadn’t got any money — that I was up to my eyes in debts.’
‘And were you?’
‘Yes — still am, as a matter of fact — although why I’m telling you all this I don’t know.’
‘Because I asked, and because you’ve got some explaining to do. You were saying — you’re in debt.’
‘Yes. Overdrawn at the bank. Behind on the car. And all my credit cards topped up to the limit.’ He laughed but didn’t sound amused. ‘That’s life, I suppose.’
Tipper imagined the life he was talking about. He had seen the sports-car on the drive in Surbiton. He noted too the clothes that Wallace wore. He was a man who clearly attempted to create an impression with material things — a substitute for character, and a recipe for disaster.
‘So you left her to it?’
‘It was the excuse I wanted really. I’d met Linda who’d just got divorced — and got a good settlement. She had her own house —’
‘The one you’re living in now?’
‘Yes. We got on extremely well — at first — so I proposed to her and she accepted. She suggested that I moved in straight away, and that we should get married later. Well that suited me in the circumstances, and that was that.’
‘I suppose you saw that as solving your financial problems as well?’
‘It certainly put an end to paying the rent — the rent on the flat. I didn’t need to give Linda very much; she’s working, of course. It was very much a co-operative. Linda knew I was in debt and I saw it as a chance to get straight —’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘I didn’t count on still seeing Penny. She rang me at the office one day — it must have been about a month later. Full of contrition, and how she desperately wanted to see me, and would I go to the flat and see her. Like a mug I went — couldn’t resist her. Of course, the situation became worse than ever — money-wise. She was short of money — the modelling jobs weren’t coming too often at that time, and I tried to help out.’ He gave a caustic laugh. ‘And I hadn’t got any money either — still, the old credit cards are a bit elastic when they need to be.’
‘That’s what she was doing at that time, was it — still modelling?’
‘Yes. But, as I say, terribly worried about money. We had a long talk and I told her I was in the Civil Service — I think that’s the first time I ever mentioned it to her. She said that she’d considered it when she left school, but hadn’t fancied it. She told me she’d done some sort of secretarial course. I suggested that she give it a try, just to tide her over. In fact, I told her how to go about it. Well, one look at her and she was in. I’ll bet they didn’t even ask her if she could type. She was obviously interviewed by a man.’
‘I shouldn’t bet on it,’ said Tipper, but decided not to explain any further.
‘I said that if she was careful, she could still carry on with her modelling — use a different name. She said she was using her maiden name of Gaston anyway, and she was known at the FCO as Mrs Lambert, but then you know all that.’
‘Despite that, you still went ahead with your marriage to Linda?’
‘Yes. I know it sounds an awful thing to say, but she’d got money, and she was virtually keeping me.’
‘And did you keep on seeing Penelope Lambert, immediately after your marriage, I mean?’
‘No, funnily enough. It was about then that she moved out of the Battersea flat. I rang up one day and someone else answered the phone — someone I didn’t know. She said that she didn’t know the previous occupant at all — they’d never met — and she certainly didn’t know where she’d gone to.’
‘And you didn’t try to find out?’
‘No. I rather hoped that I’d got her out of my system. I deliberately didn’t try to find her. I could have done, quite easily, mind you. I knew where she worked — well roughly — and a few judicious phone calls would have tracked her down, but —’
‘But you did, nevertheless?’
‘Not intentionally. I was out one lunch-time, in Victoria Street, and I met her quite by chance. I’m surprised it hadn’t happened sooner, her working just round the corner so to speak. But that meeting was all I needed to set me off again, and I knew damned well that I’d have to see her again. It didn’t help matters when she told me she was living at Hampton Wick.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well it’s just over the bridge from Surbiton — too easy — and too close for comfort.’
‘So you started seeing her again on a regular basis?’
‘Yes.’
Tipper reflected briefly on the weakness of some men. ‘And how long did this go on for?’
‘Until about ten months ago. I kept ringing and there was no answer. Of course, she’d moved to Wimbledon by then.’
‘What brought that about — the move to Wimbledon?’
‘I don’t know really. Mind you it was a pretty grotty flat she had in Hampton Wick, and it was a long way from the bright lights — that’s what she used to say. I suppose she meant the modelling agencies. She was still keen to make a success of that, rather than her dreary job at the FCO. And there were the fares, too. She complained once about how much it cost her just to get to work each day. Actually, I think …’ He relapsed into silence.
‘You think what?’
‘I don’t know if I’m right, but I got the impression that someone was looking after her when she moved to Wimbledon. She’d certainly become more distant — not so interested in me, almost as if she was trying to shake me off.’
‘D’you mean she moved in with someone?’
‘No. Rather that she’d become a kept woman. She never said as much,
at least not directly. It’s just that she seemed much brighter — more like the old Penny. And she stopped complaining about being short of money.’
‘What was her address in Hampton Wick, Mr Wallace?’
‘Twenty-seven Mexico Road — top flat.’
‘What sort of modelling was she doing, as a matter of interest?’
‘What sort? Just modelling.’
‘I think you know what I mean. There’s modelling and modelling. Now was she a straight model — advertising, or did she do the more provocative stuff?’
‘I don’t think so. I honestly don’t know. She told me she had to be a bit careful that she wasn’t recognised. She said she was always heavily made up, and usually wore a wig. And she never let them use her name in the press — they don’t usually anyway.’
‘You seem to have studied this at great length, Mr Wallace.’
‘Not really. It was only what she told me — and don’t forget I was living with her for six months.’
‘How often did you visit her in her flat at Wimbledon?’ Wallace dropped his gaze. ‘It wasn’t on a regular basis. It was a bit more difficult than Hampton Wick. Perhaps nine or ten times while she was there.’
‘And when did you last see her?’
Wallace took out his diary and thumbed through the pages. ‘It was nine weeks ago.’
‘You don’t mean to tell me that you kept a note of it in your diary?’ Tipper sounded incredulous; he never ceased to be amazed at the stupidity of some men.
John Wallace laid the diary on the table, open at the page, and with a smile on his face, pointed at the entry. ‘There,’ he said. ‘I always wrote it as “foreign affairs meeting”.’ He sounded quite pleased with himself, as though he had done something particularly clever.
Tipper sniffed. ‘Can’t see why you bothered to write it down at all,’ he said. ‘Not the sort of thing you’d forget, I imagine.’
Wallace shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I’m like that,’ he said. ‘I’ve always had a tidy mind.’
‘Really?’ said Tipper sarcastically.
‘There’ll be no need for my wife to know about this, will there, Chief Inspector?’ For the first time he sounded concerned, and had it not been for the evidence of Wallace’s fingerprints, Tipper would have been inclined to disbelieve what this rather pathetic civil servant had been telling him. He knew from experience that men who boasted of their conquests were often inventing them.
