Grave Passion

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Where’s this leading?’

  ‘Someone’s killing people for no apparent reason, and it brings focus on the area, something that neither of us wants or needs.’

  And definitely not an increased police presence, Larry knew that.

  Spanish John continued. ‘What did Mary Wilton tell you?’

  ‘She’s critical to the investigation in that all the dead women were involved with her establishment at one time or another.’

  ‘Except for Amanda, who never sold herself there.’

  ‘Amanda? The first name suggests that you knew her.’

  ‘Not personally. Did you find out where she lived?’

  ‘Not yet. Apparently, confidentiality was a prerequisite of her line of business.’

  ‘High-class whore, intimate friend to the rich and famous, to the secretive and the infamous.’

  ‘At least that’s what Mary Wilton believed she was. Apparently, Amanda was frightened, probably in too deep with the wrong people,’ Larry said.

  ‘Amanda Upton had a place in Marylebone,’ Spanish John said. ‘No idea why you haven’t found it, but then maybe you and your chief inspector aren’t as smart as you think you are.’

  Larry wasn’t going to bite. ‘We’re smart enough to have found someone who would for us, aren’t we?’ he said.

  ‘Touché.’

  ‘The address?’

  ‘Akoni’s in trouble again.’

  ‘You want a favour?’

  ‘He’s an idiot; that’s confidential, between you and me, but blood is thicker than water, even if I think he’s as thick as two short planks.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s not important. I can deal with it or a smart lawyer can. Just remember, you owe me one.’

  ‘I can’t break the law, just put a word here and there if I have to, but don’t expect me to overlook your more serious criminal activities.’

  ‘An honest cop. Do you get a medal for that?’

  ‘I sleep easy at night, but apart from that, just a modest salary, index-linked superannuation.’

  ‘Sometimes, I wish I’d taken the easy road, but I didn’t. Of all those at that school, some are dead, one’s a politician, another’s a chief inspector, the majority are slaving away in menial jobs, and some are important men in their community.’

  ‘Which one are you?’

  ‘The latter, and I don’t like to be crossed. If you’ve got anything on me, anything that can stick, you let me know, and I’ll back off.’

  ‘Don’t ask me to interfere if it’s too serious to ignore.’

  ‘Number 256, Glentworth Street, Marylebone. On the second floor, an apartment. She lived there in London. Do you know the street?’

  Larry did, a two-minute walk from the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street.

  ‘How did you find the place?’

  ‘Someone I know.’

  ‘And the other women, Hector Robinson?’

  ‘Plus a couple of hoodies in Canning Town.’

  ‘Yes,’ Larry said.

  ‘I can’t help you there. The hoodies are perfectly capable of killing each other, no help needed there from outsiders. As to Janice and Cathy, they’re probably tied in with Amanda.’

  ‘Mary Wilton?’

  ‘She’s been around a long time. No doubt she knows more than she’s letting on, but you can never be sure.’

  ‘There are two others that need finding. Ian Naughton and Analyn, no surname for her.’

  ‘Sorry, can’t help. I’ve done as much as I can,’ Spanish John said as he got up from his chair and walked out of the pub, the heavy following him. Over near the bar, the man’s insignificant brother was propping himself up with one arm on the counter, holding on to a glass with the other.

  Larry picked up his beer, took one sip and put the glass back on the table. He’d not be sleeping on the sofa that night.

  Chapter 21

  Even though it was after eleven in the evening, and Larry hadn’t made it home, such was Isaac’s enthusiasm to act on Spanish John’s information that he, Wendy, and Larry found themselves outside Amanda Upton’s residence. It was definitely upmarket, but then again it was Marylebone, and the name came with a premium if you were buying property there. A row of elegant red-brick apartment blocks, each storey interspersed with a layer of white stone, rose up five floors. A local estate agent had been roused from his sleep. As the managing agent, he had a set of keys, and though reluctant, he had listened as he was told of the circumstances of the late-night visit and had arrived at the address five minutes after the police.

  At the windows of the adjoining properties, a rustling of some of the curtains, as well as a couple of residents standing outside asking questions. Wendy had spoken to them, asked if they knew the woman on the second floor. None did, and as always, she received the obligatory response that it was a quiet neighbourhood, never any trouble, no wild parties.

  Any further information Wendy could give to the locals regarding Amanda Upton would wait until they had confirmation that it was her place of residence, and then the following morning a door-to-door would commence.

  The estate agent opened the imposing two-doored entrance to the building, Isaac and Larry following him in. All three were wearing nitrile gloves and shoe protectors. So far, the crime scene investigators were not at the scene but would be notified if and when their presence was required.

  Inside, a lift, but the three walked up the stairs, keeping to the middle of the stairway, which was also a thoroughfare for the other residents in the building. At the door of the apartment, the agent, a man fatter than any man had a right to be, and attempting to catch his breath, knocked on the door. After a couple of attempts, he turned the key and entered, setting off the burglar alarm.

  Isaac found the alarm’s control panel soon enough, and entered 000 onto a keypad, disabling the alarm. So much for security, he thought.

  The agent held back, as he had been told. It was an impressive residence, Isaac had to concede. Three bedrooms, the first with an en suite, a designer kitchen, upmarket furniture, the lair of a successful woman, which Amanda Upton had been.

  Larry, unable to curb his interest, joined Isaac in the apartment and looked out of the front window. He could see Wendy talking to a group of locals.

  By the time Isaac and Larry left the apartment, it was after one in the morning. Two crime scene investigators had arrived in the interim and would continue their work. A fingerprint on a wine glass in the kitchen had been matched to the woman at the grave, confirmed as Mary Wilton’s daughter from a photo that she had of her and Amanda Upton, and the handwriting from a letter that the mother had handed over and a diary in the apartment would be compared, although it looked to be a formality.

  On the street, a uniform stood, and a sign had been placed outside the building stating that it was a place of interest to the police.

  Wendy had a list of people who had some recollection of the woman from a photo she had shown them, although no one could remember speaking to her. She phoned Kate Baxter, checked on her movements for the next couple of days. Competent and in demand, she was working with Fraud, although she expressed a desire to be with Homicide if she could. Gwen Pritchard was free, and even though she had been woken from a deep sleep, she was excited at the prospect of once again working with Homicide.

  If, as seemed probable, Amanda Upton had made sure to keep her activities secret, it would come as a shock to some in the building that the woman had been a high-class prostitute.

  ***

  Larry arrived at Amanda Upton’s apartment at eight in the morning, the agent having supplied a key. Inside, as the night before, or more correctly, earlier that day, nothing had been disturbed. The CSIs had completed their work, so Larry only needed to wear nitrile gloves.

  In the main living area, a photo on display of a young girl and an older woman; without question, Amanda and her mother in happier times. Larry methodically walked through t
he apartment, casting his eyes around, aiming to understand how the woman had moved, what her nature was: tidy, obsessive, casual about where she placed her things. In the bedroom, the probable place for secrets to lie hidden, he took a seat close to the door. He then moved over to the wardrobe, slid one of the mirror-fronted doors to one side. The labels on the neatly hanging clothes were all designer labels, and not all of them had been purchased in England.

  He pulled open the drawers of an antique chest of drawers, only to find the woman’s underwear neatly folded, some of it wrapped in tissue. This was a methodical person, he knew, not the sort of person who would leave sensitive information visible, not the sort of person to have died for an indiscretion.

  Ian Naughton figured large in the mind of Homicide, and he was seen as a strong possibility for the murder of the woman. But that brought issues. Firstly, Rose Winston had said the man had a limp, although that was being discounted for the present. It had been dark, and both she and Brad Robinson had romance on their minds, and it could have been that the murderer had just stumbled.

  It did not assist in the death of Janice Robinson either. Her murder had been carefully done, with little blood and no evidence, and the man had not had sex with her. After all, Isaac reasoned, if Naughton could act as cool as a cucumber when the police were ready to break down his door, then he was a controlled man, an impassive personality, offering a veil of blandness.

  However, Cathy Parkinson’s murder had been anything but. For one thing, she had been knifed repeatedly, the blood splattering on two of the walls in the hotel room that doubled as her home and her business. And then she had been strung up from the shower pipe sticking out of the wall. Why the woman had been hanged made no sense as she would have already been dead. It was as if a statement was being made, but there was no way that the man could have left without his clothing having blood on it, and he had had sex with her. Two diametrically-opposed murders: one neat and tidy, the other messy and bloody. Which brought in the unresolved question as to who was sitting in the back of the BMW when one of the two white men arranged the death of Hector Robinson with the now-deceased Waylon Conroy and his gang.

  Inside a bedside cabinet he found a passport in the name of Amanda Upton, a good likeness of the dead woman, close to five thousand American dollars, an equivalent amount in Euros, and a plane ticket for Paris, dated two days after she had died. Which meant that someone had been waiting for her in the French capital, a man most likely, someone that she would have provided with her services: accompanied him to the opera, wined and dined with him, bedded him.

  Apart from that, Larry could find no secret compartment, no safe behind the books on a shelf, no notebook taped to the underside of a drawer.

  Chapter 22

  On the second floor of the building in Marylebone there were two apartments: Amanda Upton’s and another that was owner-occupied. From the street, the building looked small to have two apartments on each floor, but it stretched down the narrow block, an extension that had been done forty years previously, before the tightening of building regulations.

  Wendy knocked on the door of the other apartment, and it opened immediately. All the residents in the building had been previously informed by a couple of constables that they would be interviewed. Over the five storeys, there were eight two-bedroom apartments and a couple of studio apartments at the top. Three were owner-occupied, four were leased, and three were vacant.

  ‘I was expecting you,’ a smartly-dressed woman in her thirties said. ‘I hope this won’t take long, busy day at work.’

  ‘Not too long,’ Wendy said as she showed her warrant card. ‘Can we come in?’

  ‘Please do. I’ve got the kettle on, a cup of tea?’

  Both the police officers acknowledged they were fine with tea, Gwen saying that she preferred hers black, and Wendy asking for two sugars.

  The apartment, they could see, was not as good as Amanda Upton’s, and the furniture and fittings were worn. In short, it needed renovating.

  ‘You are Sally Fairweather?’ Wendy said after the woman returned with three cups on a tray.

  ‘I am. I work in the city, financial analyst.’

  ‘You’ve been told about your neighbour?’ Gwen said, anxious to make her mark, to impress her sergeant.

  ‘I only ever knew her as Amanda, never her surname. I was told she is involved in a murder enquiry, is that true?’

  ‘It is. Did you know her?’

  ‘She wasn’t here often, but when she was, we’d talk, sometimes go out for a meal nearby. She was keen on Indian, not that I was, too spicy for me, but I went anyway.’

  ‘Good company?’

  ‘Always, and I went over to her place once or twice, shared a bottle of wine.’

  ‘Did you ever meet anyone else there?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Never. I asked her once about her family and friends, but she always changed the subject. Surprising really, as she was pleasant, attractive, and confident. No idea why she preferred not to talk about herself, but then, some people are loners.’

  ‘Are you?’ Gwen asked.

  ‘Not me. I’ve got a steady boyfriend, and sometimes he’s here, sometimes I’m at his place. Low-key romance, taking it slow, see if we’re ready to take it to the next level.’

  To Wendy’s parents, the first level would have been marriage and then sleeping together. But Sally Fairweather belonged to a different generation.

  ‘Were you told that Amanda Upton was dead?’

  ‘I was. I asked one of the police officers, not that he was too keen to tell me, not sure if he knew too much about it.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have. Were you upset?’

  ‘Surprised. I can’t say I was upset. We were acquaintances, and whereas I enjoyed the time that I spent with her, it wasn’t that often.’

  ‘Did she talk about where her money came from?’

  ‘I never asked, and no, she never told me. As long as people don’t bother me, I don’t interest myself in their business. Although, judging by the condition of her place, I’d say she must have inherited the money.’

  ‘And you?’

  The woman looked around at her surroundings. ‘Mortgaged to the hilt,’ she said when she resumed looking at the two police officers. ‘I’ll be in debt for years with this place, the reason that it’s not in good condition. I’ve enjoyed the increase in its value, not that it means much, only if you sell and go cheaper, which I don’t intend to.’

  ‘You could refinance, realise on your capital,’ Gwen said. It was clear that the constable was on the property ladder, although unlikely to be living in Marylebone, not on her salary. Regardless, Wendy knew that was not the reason they were talking to Sally Fairweather.

  ‘Coming back to Amanda Upton,’ Wendy said, casting a glance over at Gwen, a look that said leave it to me. ‘The woman was murdered. Did you know that, Miss Fairweather?’

  ‘It wasn’t explained, but I assumed she had been.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The police presence, the uniformed officer outside the front door to the building.’

  ‘The problem is we don’t know why. Did you have any idea as to what she did when she wasn’t here?’

  ‘She travelled; she told me that much, but I assumed for pleasure.’

  ‘Amanda Upton was a high-class escort, a woman who specialised in men of wealth and influence.’

  ‘If she was, I’m shocked. But each to their own, not that I could have done that.’

  ‘Nor could I,’ Gwen said. ‘What’s important is for us to find out the names of some of her contacts, and so far, we’ve found nothing in her apartment that helps.’

  ‘I can’t help. I’m sorry, but that’s all I knew about Amanda. As I said, just an acquaintance. A nice person and I did like her, but I’m always busy, and then there’s my boyfriend.’

  ‘Will he know more?’

  ‘I doubt it. Mostly I go to his place. He lives closer to where I work, and he’s got a better place tha
n mine.’

  ***

  In the apartment at the rear of the building on the ground floor, a poorly-dressed man in his eighties, his straggly grey hair unkempt and uncut for a long time. He wore a jumper replete with holes, and on his hands, he wore fingerless gloves.

  ‘Yes, what do you want?’

  ‘Sergeant Wendy Gladstone, Constable Pritchard. We’re with Homicide, Challis Street Police Station. We’ve a few questions.’

  ‘If it’s about her upstairs, there’s nothing I can tell you.’

  ‘Still, it’s important that we interview everyone in this building. The woman has been murdered.’

  ‘I can’t say I’m surprised.’

  ‘You knew her?’ Gwen said.

  ‘Never laid eyes on her.’

  ‘We need to come in,’ Wendy said.

  Inside, the apartment did not have the pristine appearance of Amanda Upton’s, nor the well-worn look of Sally Fairweather’s. It smelt of dirt and damp, and there was litter on the floor. The man lived in a good area of London, yet preferred to live as a pauper, which he wasn’t as he was Benjamin Yardley, a man of note in the city in his younger days, a stockbroker.

  Wendy thought that he was either suffering from low-level dementia or a traumatic event in his life had changed him from dynamic to barely functioning. However, it was not of importance for the present; the dead woman was of more concern.

  ‘You said that you weren’t surprised,’ Gwen said.

  ‘Attractive, walking around in a tight skirt, showing her wares?’ Yardley said.

  ‘If you mean, was she dressing as befits a modern woman of her age, then yes,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Your constable’s age?’

  ‘More or less. Does that mean she was asking to be murdered?’

  ‘Not from me, but there are enough people out there who would regard her dress and her manner to be asking for it.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘Too promiscuous, too easy, that’s the modern generation. Your constable should be more careful.’