Tight Circle (Detective Johnny Inch series Book 2)

by J F Straker

  9

  They held a conference in Sherrey’s room at the Yard the following afternoon: the three superintendents and Johnny. Browne had been brought before a magistrate in the morning, and remanded. His solicitor (Sir John had directed his own solicitors to act for him) had optimistically applied for bail, but this had been refused at the request of the police. He was remanded in custody.

  Johnny felt awed in the company of so much top brass. It didn’t help that he was also in an unusually black mood. Never before had he tried so hard and so unsuccessfully to ‘make’ a girl. Within the space of eight days (was it only eight days he had known her?) he’d had it all set up on five separate occasions, and on each of those five occasions someone or something had baulked him. If she weren’t so damned attractive, he told himself, I’d have thrown in the sponge by now. As it is — well, I suppose I’ll have another bash.

  Sherrey was concerned that the case against Browne for his part in the robbery rested solely on the man’s own evidence. ‘If he chooses to retract his statement it could be dicey,’ he said. ‘I don’t go much on that written confession. He can deny the signature, or allege that it was extracted under duress. And remember that if we lose on Browne we also lose on Dassigne. Yes, I know he’s dead. But one likes to be tidy.’

  Johnny thought he was being unduly pessimistic. So did McInnery.

  ‘There’s the money,’ McInnery said.

  Yes, Sherrey agreed, there was the money. Bank books found in Dassigne’s flat showed that on the days following the robbery he had paid varying sums, amounting to over nineteen thousand pounds in all, into eight separate bank accounts. ‘It’s not conclusive, of course; we can’t prove the money is part of the proceeds of the robbery. But as circumstantial evidence goes — well, I suppose it goes quite a distance. You found nothing more in the flat?’

  ‘Nothing for you.’

  ‘And for you?’ Grant asked.

  McInnery shrugged. ‘Browne’s prints are on the desk, which tells us nothing we didn’t already know. So far none have been found in the bedroom: that would just about clinch it, of course, since he denies being there. The front door hadn’t been forced — neither had the desk, for that matter — which suggests that whoever killed her let himself in with a key. Well, Browne had a key — a whole bunch of keys — which he admits to having stolen. And used. It’s difficult to get round that.’

  ‘Very,’ Sherrey said. ‘Unless someone else also had a key.’

  ‘A front door key, yes,’ McInnery agreed. ‘That’s possible. But a key to the desk as well? I doubt it.’

  ‘Maybe the woman opened the door to the killer herself, sir,’ Johnny suggested.

  ‘Unlikely, Sergeant. She’d already had one doubtful visitor that night. Can you see her opening the door to another? And clad only in a nightdress which, for all it hid, she might as well have left in its drawer.’

  ‘Under the pillow,’ Grant said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Under the pillow. That’s where most women keep their nightdresses, isn’t it? Mine does.’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud!’

  ‘But suppose she was expecting a caller, sir,’ Johnny persisted. He had a feeling about Browne. Both Carole and Knickers had insisted that Browne was too timid, too soft, to kill. Now, having talked with the man, he was inclined to believe them. ‘That could explain why she opened the door to Browne. Most women living alone wouldn’t have done so. Not at that hour. Not unless they were expecting someone.’

  ‘You’re suggesting she had a lover, eh?’

  It wasn’t unlikely, Johnny thought. But before he could comment Superintendent Grant stalled off a bout of coughing to remind McInnery that Browne claimed to have returned to his Ealing flat after leaving Chelsea. Had that been checked? Of course it had been checked, McInnery said sharply, annoyed at the implied slur on his competence. The result had been negative. But Browne lived in an old house which had been converted into flatlets, all occupied by business or professional men. At two in the morning, which was somewhere about the time Browne would have returned, they were all in bed and asleep. And at midday the next day, the time he claimed to have left, they were out at work. It wasn’t surprising they hadn’t seen him.

  ‘How about their wives?’ Grant asked. ‘They’re all bachelors.’

  ‘Car?’

  ‘He parks it in the street. No one remembers seeing it there. That’s not to say it wasn’t.’

  ‘I understand the woman had been sexually assaulted,’ Sherrey said.

  ‘Savagely.’ McInnery made a grimace. ‘There were teeth marks on her breast and her neck, and her forearms were badly bruised. But apparently there’s no evidence of penetration. The pathologist suggests he masturbated against her.’

  Sherrey echoed the grimace. So did Johnny. He said, ‘That doesn’t sound like Browne, sir.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to sound like him, Sergeant, it has to be like him.’ McInnery spoke sharply. ‘And who’s to say how a man will react when he’s struggling on a bed with an attractive and near-naked woman? Can you?’

  Johnny didn’t answer. Sherrey said, ‘When was the probable time of death?’

  ‘Somewhere around four o’clock in the morning. And that poses another problem. If Browne killed her, where did he get to between then and three in the afternoon, when we picked him up leaving the flat? Nearly twelve hours. Did he stay in the flat? He’d have to be a nut case if he did — and I don’t think he’s that. On the other hand, if he left after the murder — well, why return in the afternoon?’ McInnery shook his head. ‘If it weren’t for the keys I’d be inclined to say Browne told us the truth. About Mrs Dassigne, anyway. As it is — well, I’m keeping an open mind.’

  The telephone rang. The call was for Grant, and for a big man he was surprisingly quick off the chair. Listening, he nodded, jowls flapping. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good,’ and coughed into the mouthpiece. Sherrey frowned and took it from him, ostentatiously wiping it with his handkerchief before replacing it.

  Grant said, ‘Before I left yesterday we had a report that a car had been stolen from a house outside Branleigh. It must have been taken some time after ten-thirty Tuesday night, according to the owner. Probably no connection, but I asked to be kept informed.’

  ‘It’s been found?’ Sherrey said.

  ‘Yes. Putney. With an empty tank. They’re going over it now.’

  ‘Dabs!’ McInnery said, explosively, ‘We’re bedevilled by the bloody things.’

  That was true, Johnny thought. Not only in number, but in their contradictions. For instance, there’d been those three distinct sets on the handbill: Carole’s, Dassigne’s, and an unidentified impression of a thumb and forefinger. They had assumed this impression to have been made by Cross, the Branleigh estate agent’s clerk. Now they knew that to be wrong. An identical impression had been found on the steering wheel of the Mercedes. And it was impossible for Cross to have been driving the Mercedes. Cross was dead.

  So far Johnny had had no opportunity to discuss this with the Boozer, but his mind had been worrying it throughout the conference. He remained convinced that Dassigne had been responsible for Jill Summerbee’s death; as Browne had said, if he hadn’t killed her himself he had bought some thug to do it for him. That tied in with the missing money; a hired assassin was more likely than Dassigne to have searched her handbag. It also seemed to tie in with the discovery that they had been in error over the fingerprints. The unidentified thumb and forefinger were not Cross’s, but the killer’s. And the fact that identical prints had been found on the Mercedes, and that Dassigne’s prints were on the handbill, indicated that the killer was connected in some way with Dassigne.

  ‘Dassigne seems to have put one over on his accomplices,’ Sherrey said. ‘Out of twenty-odd thousand taken from the bank, he paid in nineteen thousand to his various personal accounts. Browne got five hundred, if you believe his statement. That leaves precious little to be split three ways between the others.’ H
e started to fill his pipe. ‘How come they let him get away with that?’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t,’ McInnery said. ‘Maybe that’s how he got himself killed.’

  It’s the capitalist system,’ Grant said. ‘Unequal distribution of wealth. Very unsatisfactory.’

  McInnery frowned his distaste for such levity. Sherrey sucked furiously at his pipe. He said, ‘I need those other three men like I need promotion.’

  ‘May I butt in, sir?’ Johnny asked.

  Sherrey stared at him, still sucking. A wisp of smoke rose from the bowl. ‘You usually do,’ he said.

  ‘Corby and Dove, sir. The pair we asked Division to keep an eye on. They’re both in Dassigne’s pay. Or they were. That gives them high priority for the bank job, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘We’ve had this before,’ Sherrey said.

  ‘They’ve no form, have they?’

  ‘No. And apparently there’s been no hint of sudden opulence. But —’

  ‘There wouldn’t be, would there?’ Grant said. ‘Not on a couple of hundred or so apiece. You can’t go wild on that. Not at today’s prices.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Johnny looked at the Boozer. ‘But Carole — Miss Nicodemus —’

  ‘Carole,’ Sherrey said. ‘Don’t let’s start that again.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  He explained how he had learned from Carole that Dassigne had disliked driving himself on long journeys and often employed Corby as his chauffeur. On Monday evening Dassigne had mentioned to Carole that he would be calling at the Chic Inn to leave a message for Corby. Suppose the message was to say he wanted Corby to drive him down to Branleigh the next evening? Didn’t that make Corby the owner of the unidentified prints common to the Mercedes and the handbill? In which case...

  ‘I know, I know. It also makes him a double murderer.’ Sherrey put down the pipe. ‘Have you talked to Corby? Where was he Tuesday evening?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I know where he wasn’t. He wasn’t in the restaurant. He comes in most evenings, the waiter says; he was there Monday and he was there yesterday. But not Tuesday.’

  ‘H’m!’ Sherrey looked at McInnery, who nodded. ‘All right. See what he has to say for himself.’

  The only place he knew where to look for Corby was the Chic Inn, and Corby was unlikely to be there before six o’clock. It was now four-forty: nearly an hour and a half to kill. Well, he could do with a cuppa, and he had to ring Carole. But first, he decided, he would have a word with Whitaker in C.R.O. If Whitaker could make anything of Roger Diamond’s set of numbers he’d have done it by now.

  Whitaker was an elderly man with a ponderous manner. No, he said, he didn’t think it was a code. If it was — well, there wasn’t enough of it to break. Particularly as all four numbers were the same. ‘They could be binary numbers, of course. For that matter, they could be in any damned scale. Or even a variety of scales. That would at least vary their denary values.’

  ‘I’m not with you,’ Johnny said.

  Whitaker explained: numbers in everyday use were in the denary or decimal scale, binary numbers in the scale of two. But if Johnny were interested in that particular set of numbers only there was no need to go into detail. Their denary equivalent would always be one more than the square of the scale number. ‘Assume they’re in the scale of five, say. Then the denary equivalent is twenty-five plus one.’

  ‘Twenty-six,’ Johnny said. ‘I can manage that.’

  ‘You can manage the rest. It’s dead simple.’

  ‘Well, I’ll work at it. How do I know which scale numbers to choose?’

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘Oh! Well, thanks, anyway.’

  ‘You’re welcome. It’s probably a wasted exercise.’

  Johnny thought he could be right.

  He rang Carole at her office. No, she said, she couldn’t meet him that evening.

  Her mother was coming up to spend the night with her; she had an appointment with the solicitors the following after-noon. No, they wouldn’t be eating out; Humphrey was joining them for a meal at the flat. Tomorrow? Carole couldn’t say. It depended on whether her mother stayed for one night or two. ‘Ring me in the afternoon, Johnny,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you know then. ‘Bye. I’m sorry about tonight.’

  ‘So am I,’ he said. ‘Very.’

  It was after five-thirty when he reached the Chic Inn; too late for tea, and too early for dinner. But Corby wasn’t there, and Johnny was hungry; he ordered scrambled eggs and a pot of tea, and decided to have a snack and a beer later. Custom was slack in the restaurant, and for much of the time he carried on an intermittent conversation with Fred. Fred wanted to discuss the murders, Johnny wanted to learn more about Corby and Dove. Fred said he didn’t know any more. They were just customers, he said; although sometimes he and Corby had a few beers together, seeing as they lived in the same street. It was when Carole’s name cropped up that Fred became eloquent. He’d never met a girl he admired as much as Miss Micklemas, he said: wasn’t she lovely? Yes, Johnny agreed, not bothering to correct him on the name, she was lovely. So kind, Fred said, so — so friendly. Yes, Johnny said, she was all that. He’d do anything for Miss Micklemas, Fred said. Johnny wanted to say that Fred had already done splendidly by Miss Micklemas. He was sorry Carole had said not to mention the incident. He would have liked to add his thanks to hers.

  He was on his third cup of tea when Aaron Corby walked into the restaurant and seated himself in a booth on the opposite side of the room. He looked tired and dejected and rather scruffy. Johnny picked up his cup and went to join him.

  ‘You’re Aaron Corby, eh?’ he said, sliding into the opposite seat. ‘Right?’

  Corby’s long nose sniffed. ‘And you’re a scoffer,’ he said. ‘Right?’

  ‘The name’s Inch,’ Johnny told him.

  ‘Detective sergeant. How about a beer?’ Corby shrugged. ‘Fred?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Inch?’

  ‘Bring our friend here a glass of beer, will you?’ And to Corby, ‘Mind answering a few questions?’

  ‘So long as they ain’t personal.’

  ‘They’re personal.’ Johnny waited while Fred brought the beer and poured it. ‘You used to work for Mr Dassigne, didn’t you?’

  ‘On and off.’

  ‘Were you ‘on’ last Tuesday week, when he and his pals did that bank job over at Acton?’

  Corby sipped, taking his time. ‘Who says he done a bank?’

  ‘I do. So does one of his mates. Don’t you read the papers?’

  ‘I ain’t interested in crime.’

  ‘You were interested in this one. Come off it, Corby. You may as well cough. We know you were there.’

  ‘You trying to con me?’ Corby wiped froth from his moustache. His fingernails were black. ‘If some geezer put the finger on me you wouldn’t be here rabbiting. You’d have bloody sussed me.’

  Johnny sighed. ‘You used to drive for Dassigne, didn’t you?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘But you didn’t drive for him Tuesday week, eh?’

  ‘I said I didn’t, didn’t I?’

  ‘How about last Tuesday, then? Day before yesterday?’

  ‘Tuesday?’ Corby considered, his tired eyes watchful. ‘Hey! That’s the day the guv’nor was croaked, ain’t it? You trying to knock me for that too? Well, I’ll tell you, scoffer — I ain’t seen the guv’nor for more’n a week. And that’s gospel.’

  ‘Not quite gospel. You saw him when he called in here Monday evening.’

  ‘I wasn’t in here Monday. Not as I remember. And I didn’t see the guv’nor.’

  ‘Could be your memory’s at fault,’ Johnny said. The tea was lukewarm, but he finished it. Finishing his food was a legacy from childhood. Never leave anything on your plate, Johnny, his mother used to say; the next meal may be further than you think. ‘In which case you may have forgotten driving him down to Branleigh day before yesterday, eh?’

  Corby stared at him. ‘You’re right, mate. I’ve f
orgotten.’

  ‘Ah! So maybe you’ve even forgotten that you killed him, and then heisted a car to get you back to the Smoke.’

  ‘You know your trouble?’ Corby’s nostrils flared in disdain. ‘You got a nasty mind. Why would I croak the guv’nor?’

  ‘Because of that bank job you say you didn’t do,’ Johnny told him. ‘You only got peanuts in the carve-up, and you reckoned you’d been done. What was it? A couple of hundred — out of twenty grand? You were done, all right.’

  ‘You’re off your loaf, scoffer.’ Despite his haggard appearance he sounded confident. Too confident, Johnny thought. He’s going to be hard to crack. ‘If I’d done the guv’nor I wouldn’t have nicked no jamjar. I’d have used the Merc, wouldn’t I?’

  Not if you heard someone coming, and had to disappear until he’d gone. And then found he’d taken the keys.’

  ‘So what?’ Corby almost laughed. ‘The guv’nor carried two sets of keys. Always. Case he lost one.’ He finished his beer. ‘You done rabbiting? Being seen with scoffers harms me reputation.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had one,’ Johnny said. ‘Good or bad. All right, you can go. But I’ll be seeing you. And that’s a promise.’

  Corby went. Fred was busy taking an order, and Johnny picked up Corby’s glass with his handkerchief and pocketed it. Then he paid his bill and left.

  To his surprise, Sherrey was still at the Yard when he got there, his long, angular body draped over a filing cabinet. Johnny suspected the Boozer and his wife didn’t get on. The Boozer never seemed to fret at working late.

  Sherrey’s eyebrows lifted at the sight of his subordinate. ‘What’s the matter? Sex-glands not functioning correctly?’

  ‘Taking a night off, sir,’ Johnny said. The Boozer always treated him as if he were a sex maniac. It wasn’t true, of course. He just liked birds.

  He told him about Corby, and that he had handed in the glass for Corby’s prints to be checked against the others. Corby’s assertion that Dassigne always carried a duplicate set of keys was, he thought, significant. It meant that Corby — someone other than Browne, anyway — could have entered Dassigne’s flat without breaking in.