by Mark Timlin
David Sutton sat behind a desk made from a solid slab of black timber that looked as if it might support a small motor car, but held nothing heavier than a single telephone. A red one, of course.
He jumped to his feet at my entrance, and as his assistant closed the door discreetly behind me, he danced across the expensive Wilton with his hand outstretched. He was wearing a smooth little grey worsted number that probably cost somewhere in the region of a grand and a half, over a pink and black striped shirt, and a tie that told me his political views were somewhere to the right of my own.
‘Mr Sharman,’ he said in an Eton and Oxford bray. ‘I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. I had no idea when you made the appointment that you were a friend of Nancy’s. And Harry’s, of course,’ he added. ‘But Nancy was on the blower a while ago and explained everything.’
‘Good,’ I said.
‘Coffee? A drink?’
‘Coffee would be fine.’
He hit the phone, barked an order and dropped it back on its rest.
‘Do sit down,’ he said, and I perched myself on an uncomfortable-looking leather and chrome affair in front of his desk.
‘So how can I help? I’ve spoken to the police . . . a tragic affair.’ He shook his head sadly, but not enough to disturb his mane of silver-grey hair.
‘What happened to make Harry do a runner a year ago?’ I asked bluntly.
He looked at me in wide-eyed innocence and said, ‘God knows.’
‘You must have some idea.’
‘Believe me, I’ve racked my brains, both at the time and latterly when the tragedy of his death came to light. It was a dreadful shock to all of us here. He’s sadly missed.’
‘There must have been something.’
‘I can only put his vanishing down to the stress of the job. Harry was high profile.’
‘But he was a copper for a long time. He was used to stress. And that doesn’t explain how come he ended up the way he did. Even the most stressed of us can hardly slice and dice our bodies up and leave the bits all over the place.’
I don’t think Sutton was impressed by my logic. ‘As you so rightly put it, Mr Sharman, Harry was a police officer for a long time. Perhaps his past caught up with him.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But let’s get back to his disappearance. Tell me about the stress he was under.’
‘Quite simply, the buck stopped with him here.’
‘In what way?’
‘For instance, if we had a loss.’
‘Like a robbery?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Like the hijacking of that truck a couple of years ago?’
Sutton’s face fell. The truck in question had held something close to twenty million quid in used notes due for the shredder. En route to its destination, a seemingly genuine message came over the truck’s radio. The police had got a whisper that the truck was going to be hijacked. The driver was to make a detour, meet up with a police escort and proceed back to base. The meet was on an industrial estate just off the A3. On arrival the driver saw a squad car with two uniformed coppers and a plain saloon parked up. Reassured, the guard riding next to the driver got out to get instructions, the waiting men all produced semi-automatic weapons, the guard was grabbed by one of the fake coppers, doused in petrol and a box of matches was rattled by his ear. The driver took off in reverse but was boxed in by a third car, and when he tried to contact 4F on his radio he discovered that his transmission was being jammed. When one of the matches was lit next to his oppo’s face, the driver surrendered. The guard in the back of the truck held out for another minute or two, but when he heard the hysterical voice of the driver over the intercom pleading for him to give in and save their mate’s life, he opened the back up. The transfer of the money to the two unmarked cars and another van took just a few minutes, and the robbery was all over within five of the truck arriving.
At the time, it was the biggest cash snatch in British history, and went down with the Great Train Robbery in record books.
It took the police over six months to crack the case and start to make arrests. Eventually eleven people in this country were arrested and convicted, and a further eight warrants were still outstanding for fugitives, most of whom had been traced to Spain.
At the time of my meeting with Sutton, not one penny of the money had been recovered, and whoever had masterminded the affair, including getting the frequency of the radio in the trucks, which was changed twice a day, had never been caught.
‘We don’t like to talk about that one too much,’ Sutton said.
I just bet you don’t, I thought.
‘Thank God we were well insured,’ he continued.
‘It wasn’t like having the video nicked, though, was it?’ I said.
‘All our customers were recompensed.’ He was up on his high horse now, and I thought it was time he was knocked off it.
‘But it wouldn’t have done your reputation much good.’
‘No good at all.’
‘And was Harry involved at the time?’
‘Of course.’
‘So that’s the sort of stress you’re talking about?’
‘Correct.’
His assistant interrupted us with the coffee.
Whilst she poured it out I admired the view from the window, and the way her bottom filled out her tight skirt, and the perfect way that Sutton’s distinguished grey hair curled over his collar.
When she had left us I said, ‘So was Harry showing any particular signs of stress before he went?’
‘No, he seemed fine.’
‘So it’s a complete mystery?’
‘Completely.’
‘I’ve tried talking to the police, Mr Sutton,’ I said. ‘But I’m not getting much cooperation. Have they come up with any theories about where he was for the year he went missing, do you know?’
‘I’ve spoken to DI Bell who is in charge of the investigation locally,’ said Sutton. ‘We happen to belong to the same lodge.’
That explained a lot. I wondered why he hadn’t given me the funny handshake, but then even washed and neatly combed I don’t look like Mason material.
‘But I’m afraid they’re as baffled as the rest of us,’ he said.
For some reason, and I don’t know exactly what, I didn’t entirely believe him.
‘Is that so?’ I said.
Sutton nodded, sipped his coffee and patted his lips dry with a pristine white handkerchief that he pulled from his sleeve.
I knew I was wasting my time, so I swallowed the remains of my drink and stood up. ‘Well, thank you for your help,’ I said.
Sutton waved his hand as if it had been nothing, and it had. ‘Don’t mention it,’ he said as he rose too. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help Nancy, I will.’
I bet, I thought.
He came round and shook my hand again, and his grip was damp, but then it was a warm day, although the air conditioning in the building was on.
‘Any time I can do anything,’ he said too profusely, as he took my elbow and guided me to the door. ‘Any time at all, just get in touch.’
‘I will,’ I said as he opened the door and slid me through the gap so gallantly that I almost expected him to blow me a kiss.
I was early for my dinner date, so I pointed the car north over Putney Bridge and went and scoped out Nancy’s gaff. Forewarned is forearmed.
I was impressed. Well impressed. It was in a tree-lined street between the Fulham Road and the New King’s Road. The house was double-fronted. A rarity round there, with a twin garage attached, small grounds and a short gravel-covered driveway up to the garage, which was reached through iron gates set in high walls. All in all, a right little pied-à-terre, and worth something in the region of three quarters of a million, I reckoned.
Obviously life chez Stonehouse wasn’t exactly lived at subsistence level.
I drove off and found a boozer on the Fulham Road. It was called the Cat & Canary, part of a chain. But
it was big and quiet at that time of night, and it served beer, so I didn’t complain. I bought an evening paper and read it over a couple of pints and five Silk Cut.
At twenty to seven I left, and in the gathering dusk drove back to Nancy’s.
I parked the car on the street and crunched up the gravel holding a bottle of decent red I’d bought in the local off-licence in one hand, and a bunch of sorry-looking flowers I’d purchased from the stall in front of the off-licence in the other.
I rang the bell and Nancy answered in a jiffy.
She was dolled up like a dog’s breakfast in a short little clingy dark blue number which suggested mourning but didn’t confirm it, black, sheer nylons, dark blue high heels, a Revlon counter of make-up, and she’d curled her hair into thick ringlets. She was holding a cigarette in one hand, and a half-full wine glass in the other.
The Merry Widow writ large.
I offered the wine and the flowers, she accepted both cheerfully, kissed me on the cheek, leaving a red lip mark that I saw in the hall mirror, and invited me in.
The hall itself was wide, sufficiently lit and opulent, with thick, patterned carpet on the floor, and a host of paintings on the walls. If even ten per cent were originals, Sotheby’s would be drooling.
‘Come on through,’ she said, and did a sharp left through an arch into the living room.
That was rather less sufficiently lit, but just as opulent. The curtains were drawn and Barry White was on the stereo.
I figured I’d better keep my jock-strap buttoned or I could lose my honour.
‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Drink?’
‘Sure.’
‘Red or white?’
‘Whatever you’re having,’ I said, nodding at her glass.
‘Wise move.’
She left the room in the direction of, I assumed, the kitchen, which I must confess was oozing good smells, and returned a minute later with a goblet of wine for me.
I accepted it and lit a cigarette. ‘So. What news?’ she asked.
‘You know the reaction I got from Bell. I got the bum’s rush at 4F too. Sutton was the soul of charm, but told me sweet FA. And he fancies you, by the way.’
‘Tell me something new,’ said Nancy, perching on the arm of my chair. ‘He was always trying to grope me in the old days.’
She smelled good too, and I wished she’d find a chair of her own, when she said, ‘S’cuse me, I’ve got to check the roast. You like lamb, I hope.’
‘Definitely my favourite,’ I said.
‘With new potatoes, fresh peas, baby carrots, mint sauce and a very rich gravy.’
‘Sounds too good to be true.’
‘And my own apple pie to follow. It was a toss-up between that and some poncy nouvelle cuisine. But I remembered that you liked your meat rare and bloody.’
I’d heard it put more delicately, but it was true.
‘You got me,’ I said. ‘Guilty as charged.’
She sloped off again, and I got up and checked the bookshelves. A lot of biography. Political. Kenneth Clarke, Michael Foot, Churchill. A smattering of hardback pop fiction in the Jilly Cooper mould. Some airport fodder paperbacks, some true crime, and a load about antique furniture. I checked the bureau next to the bookcase. It looked like it should be Chippendale. If it wasn’t, then I was fooled. But I’m no expert.
Just then Nancy came back into the room and rescued her glass.
‘Nice place,’ I said. ‘Quite a palace.’
‘Harry picked it up cheap when he left the force. I oversaw the building work to bring it up to scratch, and chose the furnishings. I found I had the knack for picking up decent pieces for next to nothing. I discovered a talent I never knew I had.’
‘Hence the books,’ I said.
‘That’s right. It’s been an education.’
‘A profitable one, by the looks of it,’ I said.
‘Not really. I just pick pieces I like. Sometimes I sell them on, but I find I become too attached to part with them mostly. Come on through. We’re eating in the kitchen. I hope you don’t mind. If we used the dining room I’d have to keep vanishing.’
‘You should see where I eat,’ I said. Then I remembered she had, once upon a time.
She led me through to the kitchen which was about half the size of the Albert Hall, with a long, varnished table at one end by a set of French windows.
‘Cosy,’ I said. ‘You could get my flat into here twice.’
‘Does that bother you?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
She sat me on one side of the table and her place was set on the other. She put a cute little apron over her dress and served the food.
It was great. The lamb was pink, tender and tasty, the vegetables were crisp, the mint sauce was home made, and the gravy reeked of booze.
The apple pie and cream that followed was great too, and she made coffee, and we went back into the living room. She perched on the edge of one of the armchair cushions, and I took the other.
Brandy and glasses were already set out on the coffee table and she said, ‘Will you be mum?’
I grinned.
‘What?’ she said.
‘That always makes me laugh.’
‘I’m glad I still can.’
‘Me too.’
After that we sat and shot the shit like old friends. The coffee pot and brandy bottle diminished rapidly, and Barry White became Simply Red, then Chris de Burgh, then Chris Rea. You can’t be arrested for poor musical taste.
We hardly talked about Harry at all, and neither of us made a pass at the other. When I’d OD’d on soft rock, I looked at my watch. It was midnight and I was pissed.
‘I’d better go,’ I said.
‘Do you have to?’
‘I’m on the case, and I should do some work tomorrow.’
‘Well, if you must.’
‘I must,’ I said. We shook hands at the door which was quite amusing, and I walked down the drive, fumbling for my car keys.
As I reached the street and made for the car a voice said, ‘Not driving I hope, Sharman.’
I stopped dead and peered around. Sitting on the bonnet of a dark coloured, late-model Montego was a man. I thought I recognised the voice. I hoped I was wrong.
He pushed himself away from the motor and sauntered over. Then I knew that my fears were grounded.
‘Remember me?’ he asked.
As if I could ever forget. DS Jackson from Denmark Hill nick.
‘You’re a long way from home,’ I said.
‘Always ready to help a colleague,’ he said in that arsehole accent of his. ‘That your car?’
He pointed to mine.
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Driving home?’
I shrugged.
‘Looks like a set of car keys in your hand to me,’ he said, then changed the subject. ‘See that car over there?’ he raised his hand and headlights blinked. ‘That’s a traffic patrol with a couple of constables inside who’d be pleased to breathalyse you the minute you step inside your vehicle.’
‘See that car there?’ he asked, pointing back at the Montego. ‘That’s my car, and I’ll be happy to give you a lift to the local nick in it to see my mate Philip Bell, and we can all have a nice chat over a cuppa.’
‘You lot are closer than maggots in a tin,’ I said.
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ said Jackson. ‘So don’t even think about driving, my son, otherwise you’re up shit creek.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you just nick me?’
‘Because you’re a sensible man, Sharman, and we don’t bear grudges. Leave Nancy and her problems to us. There’s a dear.’
‘I have a choice?’
‘No. Stick your beak in and we’ll chop it off. Now go back and do whatever you two do together, and get off the case.’
‘Your word is my command,’ I said, and I turned and walked back the way I’d come.
I we
nt back up the drive and knocked on the front door. Nancy opened it on the chain. ‘Forget something?’ she said as she slipped the chain and opened the door all the way.
‘There’s two car-loads of Old Bill in the street. They’ve decided I’m a danger to public safety behind the wheel. Can I call a cab?’
‘Come in,’ she said.
I walked back into the warm hall and she said, ‘How did they know you were here?’
‘Christ knows. It’s all down to your mate Bell. But at least it shows I must be doing something right.’
Nancy pulled a face. ‘I’m making more coffee. Want some?’
‘Can I use your phone first?’
‘Oh, don’t be silly Nick. That means you’ll have to waste half the morning coming back for your car. There’s three spare bedrooms upstairs. Stay over.’
I juggled the thought for a second, then said, ‘OK. And I’ll take that coffee too.’
After another two cigarettes and a cup of coffee, Nancy showed me to my room. It was at the back of the house, large and luxurious, with an en-suite shower room and lavatory, and the king-size bed was made up.
She left me alone and I cleaned my teeth with a new brush and paste I found in the bathroom cabinet, took a piss and climbed into bed. The sheets were crisp and cool against my skin, the room was pitch dark, and I soon drifted into sleep.
What time she came into the room I don’t know. It was still full night outside so it must’ve been early. She was warm and slippery and we did a lot of the things we’d done so long ago, and after she left I realised neither of us had said a word.
I fell asleep again and dreamed.
I dreamed about my second wife Dawn, and her friend Tracey, and my second daughter who would have been called Daisy if she’d ever been born and christened.
But she hadn’t. She was consumed by the same fire that killed Dawn and Tracey early one morning on a deserted motorway.
All three had been murdered.
Then the dream changed and I was walking through a killing ground, a fully automatic machine pistol burning my hands as it pumped out its lethal load.
