“Even if I was there at that time, does not mean that I was there – when did you say? Between 8 p.m. last night and 4 a.m. this morning, does it?”
“But you were there when Mrs Shorter saw you.” Bright pressed him.
“You are trying to fit me up for a murder, correct?”
“Yes. No. I mean, not fit you up, interview you, prove that you did it.”
Humble could not contain himself any longer. “We are here to establish exactly what went on at 315, Cadogan Mansions.”
“Can’t help you there,” Groat barrelled on, “but what you’re saying – if I have it right – is, because someone saw me in the vicinity of that location at 07:45 this morning means that a) that I was not at home – overnight, before that – and b) that I was somehow involved with the person actually inside number 315?”
“Probably.” Bright said.
“And it also proves I was connected with whatever happened in number 315?”
“Possibly.”
“Bollocks. Possibly and probably does not translate into ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ which even you – ” He glared at Bright “might remember is the burden of proof required to sustain a conviction in a court of criminal law.”
Humble was ready to explode, but controlled his anger. “Mr Groat. We are supposed to be asking the questions here. So, putting all that waffle aside, were you there this morning, at 07:45?”
He hesitated before answering, “Might have been… In that general area...”
Bright again, “So why did you lie to us earlier, then?”
“I didn’t. Was what I said completely lost on you? Let me make it simple for you. Which word, exactly, did you not understand?”
“All right. Why did you not say – that is, volunteer the information – that you were in the vicinity? It would have allowed us to move on and wouldn’t have cast even more suspicion on you. Like it has.”
“I didn’t think anybody was around to see me and I can’t afford to compromise the project I’m working on at the moment.”
“Project? What project?”
“Need to know basis – and you, most definitely, do not need to know.”
“So are you telling us you were on police business?”
“Oh, well done.”
“All night?”
“If you like.”
“So how come you were rostered to work eight to four yesterday and nine to five today. Are you telling us you are in the process of working thirty three hours without a break?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Humble interjected, “And is that why you are shown as booking off duty at sixteen twenty yesterday afternoon?”
Groat sighed. He could spill the beans (a carefully edited can, of course) and the nightmare would be over. But that would not only spoil the current project, but also ruin the overarching purpose. That of ridding him of Olivia’s criminal scheme and getting him out of his self excavated grave – as well as the small added bonuses of gaining a lord protector and salvaging his job and marriage.
No contest.
Egregiously uncomfortable in the short term, but absolutely no contest whatsoever.
He said, “Look. I was on legitimate business.” Legitimate one-last-shag-before-I-lose-it-forever business, that is. “I can’t talk about it at the moment and I didn’t even want to mention it at all in the first place. You’ve forced me so far, but no further.”
“Not good enough, I’m afraid, Mr Groat.” Humble said quietly. “Show him the first exhibit, Mr Bright.”
Exhibit?
First exhibit?
Bright fumbled in the brown paper bag on the floor beside him and withdrew a small cellophane packet. Placed it on the table between them.
Groat’s scrotum screwed painfully taut again. He swallowed. “Where the devil did you get that?”
“It was beside the body. It has your fingerprints on it.”
“Of course it’ll have my bloody fingerprints on it. It’s mine. But how the hell did you get hold of it?”
Humble said, “You’ve just been told. Do I have to spell it out to you? Next to the body of a dead prostitute called Suzie Wong, in number three one five Cadogan Mansions.”
Groat picked up the bag. It contained a metallic grey Ronson Variflame cigarette lighter with the initials L.E.G. on one side and engraved on the other ‘Your flame, always, Love G.’ He was unable to use it as it leaked and would no longer hold a charge of gas.
“I’ve never been near three one five. Not inside, anyhow.”
Bright said, “What brand of cigarettes do you smoke, Mr Groat?” He retrieved a half empty packet of Rothmans King Size from the brown paper bag and tossed them onto the table. “Rothmans, by any chance?”
Humble said, “I think it’s about time you started talking to us. Properly. Don’t you, Temporary Chief Inspector?”
THIRTY SEVEN
Bonehead was more than satisfied with the progress of his plan. Groat was to be transferred to police cells at Cannon Row police station and kept there overnight. A couple of telephone calls established that, unless there were any dramatic changes in circumstances, Groat would be questioned again the following day, then put before magistrates to request a remand in custody.
What a result – a police officer on a three day lay down! A formal charge of murder in these circumstances was inevitable. He rubbed his hands together maniacally.
Gotcha!
*
Detective Sergeant Edward George Pearson regarded Groat’s empty desk with dismay. He knew he was regarded by some as dull, a plodder, a foot soldier even, but he didn’t mind – most of the time. He also knew that there were occasions when his friends and colleagues took short cuts with their cases. He had always been taught not to gild the lily – put little extra finishing touches to otherwise rather weak evidence to secure a conviction. He lived by the maxim, They’ll come again – and they usually did. And – usually – Ted Pearson, pragmatic, patient Sergeant Ted Pearson would be waiting for them. That approach had not helped him with meteoric promotion though. He sighed. Unlike some, however, he could always sleep well at night – and usually in his own bed. He thought of his friend, Lester Groat, who had probably not slept at all well, least of all in his own bed, since his wife went to visit her aunt.
He made some calls and confirmed what Bonehead had found out before him. That the Complaints and Discipline duo wanted to further question their prisoner. That there was the likelihood of an application for a three day lay down. That there was actually some real, hard evidence – as well as witnesses – that placed him at the scene of the crime.
Good god, my boy. You’ve really gone and done it this time.
Having carried out some initial enquiries, he left his friend to his fate – if only temporarily – in order to put the final organisational touches to the sting. This was what he excelled at and one reason Groat was able to entrust this part of the operation to him. This is what the man told him and what Ted entirely believed. It happened to be true, but the possibility that Groat might possess any ulterior motive completely escaped Ted (plodder) Pearson. The plain, ungallant, sordid truth was that Groat and Olivia had made love until they were both raw and exhausted the previous night – and he did not want to be present, to endure the extreme unpleasantness that would undoubtedly ensue when she was arrested.
He briefed the teams responsible for keeping observations on Cadogan Mansions and following Olivia to the drop sites. The arrest team were to move in after she had made the first two pick-ups and then the others would ensure that the rest of the cash drops were secured. There were scheduled to be ten this first night and nine on the following two nights – always assuming that everyone paid up, of course. Provided appropriately thorough searches were carried out, they were not to be unduly concerned if there were less than twenty eight, as it was by no means a foregone conclusion that she would achieve a one hundred percent success rate. In fact, experience and the law of averages suggested t
hat she would not.
Ted was preoccupied with his own concerns and priorities, having been given the awesome responsibility of protecting high ranking officials and the government from imminent downfall, by retrieving Olivia’s little black book and ensuring its safe keeping.
THIRTY EIGHT
03:48 hours Friday 6th September 1974.
The little man, clad in his trademark black, stood silently surveying the rear of the sub post office in Higher Baxenden, Accrington. Many Post Offices were now equipped with alarms that automatically dialled out when activated and played a taped message when they connected to the local police station. Whether it was as a result of his doings, his exploits, he didn’t know and didn’t care. There were no scruples, no higher ideals surrounding his venture, it was simply the money. He cared about what he did, inasmuch as his approach was utterly professional and he planned each job with military precision. His first task, therefore, was to neutralise the threat of any alarm. He searched, found the telephone wires and quickly cut them.
He discovered his love of all matters military during his National Service. Bullied as a child, when he been sent to join the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry he had been regarded as the original seven stone weakling. Nobody could be bothered to remember his name; everyone called him short arse. His response was to become a keep-fit fanatic, running, weight training, swimming regularly. He never forgot his army training and the experience he gained in his two years National Service – anti Mau Mau operations in Kenya, fighting EOKA terrorists in Cyprus and security duties in Aden against Arab nationalists.
What he could not know, was that asleep inside the building he was about to attack, was a real soldier. After retiring from the Royal Marines, Derek Astin initially took employment as a joiner. Unfortunately, he sustained serious injuries falling off a roof he was working on. Unable to cope with such a physically demanding occupation any more, he put his savings into a sub post office, taking over the Higher Baxenden premises five years previously.
In the darkly faint beginnings of the false dawn, the black figure produced his home made boring tool and set to work on the woodwork of the rear lounge window frame. Five minutes and two holes later, he carefully inserted the bent piece of wire that enabled him to release the window catch. Smoothly, carefully and entirely silently he slid up the sash. Checking the sawn-off and with his .22 pistol on a lanyard around his neck, he climbed into the bungalow and closed the window behind him. His experience of other post offices and their postmasters taught him where the safe keys were most likely to be, but tonight brought him no success. He crept upstairs to the dormer bedrooms and began searching there.
Derek and Marion Astin were light sleepers and both heard the muffled footfalls on the stairs. The orange street lighting out the front shone through a slight gap in the bedroom curtains. Marion gripped her husband’s thigh painfully as she saw the small black clad, ferret like apparition creep into their bedroom. Terror stricken and in full knowledge of the previous post office raids, she froze, unable to move. Her breathing became fast and shallow and her chest painfully tight. Although he climbed the stairs as silently as humanly possible, as he came into the room, the figure started emitting strange, tiny, animal grunting noises. Out of her mind with fear, she felt her husband tense and, without warning or hesitation, he rose from his bed, silently at first and then emitting a soul curdling bellow, launched himself at the intruder. The masked man could not know that Derek was disabled, still forced to hobble about after his fall and only a few days previously had undergone an operation to amputate one of his big toes. In spite of this, the forty three year old cannoned into the intruder with such force that he knocked him straight out of the bedroom, across the landing and into the bathroom. Marion, a slight figure compared with her burly husband, was no coward and having recovered from her initial fright, went to assist her man in any way she could.
Looking desperately around for some sort of weapon, she picked up the vacuum cleaner and screamed, “Hit him with this.”
Before Derek could act, there was a vicious, eardrum splitting crash and a brief but brilliant yellow flash lit up the players in this deadly struggle. Once again, the intruder used his sawn-off twelve bore to devastating effect, almost completely severing Derek’s left upper arm from his shoulder. Blood, tissue and shattered bone fragments spattered over the walls, the ceiling and started to drip off the Artex onto the carpet. Thirteen year old Susan Astin, woken up by the noise and commotion, peeped out of her bedroom door when she heard the ruckus start. Her screams now joined the fading echoes of the shots and whimpering with terror, she crept back and cowered under her bedclothes.
Derek realised he was grievously wounded, as he was shivering with cold, but without the full onslaught of pain he was aware should come from such a serious injury. But, however badly he may have been hit, he had no intention of letting this bastard hurt his family, take anything from them, or get away with shooting him. Vague notions of the small black intruder being responsible for robbing others and killing his Harrogate colleague also fretted around the edges of his thought process. He gained some little comfort in the knowledge that their new alarm system would have already alerted the police, who were no doubt even then on their way to rescue them and rectify this hideously frightening situation. He was in deep shock and nauseating waves of exquisite agony now began to wash over him. He had already lost so much blood that his sight was occluded with milky star shapes and he was weakening fast. The intruder made to push past him.
Summoning every last reserve of willpower, Derek gritted his teeth. He did not possess the wherewithal for a yell of attack this time, but amazingly, with the last remaining dregs of his strength, managed to spin the intruder around and hurl him downstairs. He leant, bent over against the banister rail, dizzy, exhausted and bleeding profusely. His attacker, in a typically callous, calculated and unnecessary act, turned his pistol up towards the dying man and took aim. The bullet ripped through Derek’s fundament and kicked upwards, spiralling erratically, shattering vital organs as its kinetic energy dissipated.
In the silence that followed, Marion and Susan attempted to stem the life blood as it ebbed out of Derek’s shattered and macerated torso. Desperately she went to the phone and dialled 999, only to find the receiver totally dead. Returning to tend to her husband, she bade Susan go with her ten-year-old brother to neighbours to call the ambulance and the police.
Already more than a mile distant, a small shadowy figure clad all in black yomped contentedly away across the fields.
THIRTY NINE
The following morning, D/S Pearson arrived for work as usual. Groat’s desk was unoccupied and it immediately appeared that Ted’s worst fears were coming true. His friend’s proclivities meant that he would be forced to set about two activities he hated more than most. Negotiate with a solicitor and speak to extremely senior officers. He procrastinated, making himself a cup of tea and tidying his desk. By twenty past nine, it became obvious that Groat was not going to put in an appearance and he would be compelled to do as requested.
Shit.
Another maxim learned as a young in service copper. Start with the easy jobs.
He skirted around the solicitor issue, reasoning that the appearance of a lawyer at the police station would only make them look weak, as though there was actually some case to answer.
He lived in hope.
He screwed up the courage to phone the DAC. He was not certain what to expect, but what occurred was not what he imagined. He had not expected to be able to speak to the big man straight away, if at all. He spoke to his secretary, was told Mr Van Lesseps was in a meeting and he would have to call again. That was in line with what he surmised. Two minutes later the man himself called him back. That definitely was not.
“Have you got the book?”
Ted gulped, “Yes, sir.”
“Are there any copies?”
“No sir, not to my knowledge.”
“Are you ce
rtain?”
Ted thought, This national security business really grips everybody. Even the deputy assistant commissioner. Wow. “Well sir, D/S, er, that is DCI Groat said that the silly cow, sorry, Miss Di Angelo said…”
“Right. First of all, get that book over to me. Personally, do you understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Don’t interrupt. You don’t read it, you don’t even open it or look in it, you put it straight in a sealed envelope and bring it personally to me. Do you understand?”
Ted waited, then took a deep breath. “Yes sir.”
“And get a scene guard on those premises if there isn’t one already. I want that flat taken apart. It is utterly imperative that there are no copies, that we have all the information so it cannot be made available to anyone else. Do I make myself clear?”
Whatever the book contained must be high explosive. Ted knew that Groat would have a look. No, that was naïve. He would read it, cover to cover. But his name was not Groat, it was Pearson. Good old, dependable Ted Pearson and he would do as he was told. Without as much as a glance, he sealed it in a tough brown envelope, placed it securely in his inside jacket pocket and set off.
*
Groat was having plenty of time to consider his position. He could not wait to be given the word and be finally able to extricate himself from both the uncomfortable nightmare he was presently enduring in the cells – and the more entrenched problem with Olivia. He passed a restless, sleepless night on a mattress a mere couple of inches thin and although the custodians displayed a sympathetic attitude towards him and allowed him extra blankets as well as other small kindnesses, he sensed a wariness there, too.
They think there’s something to all this, as well.
The night staff switched out the main cell light, but the dim security light was sufficient to keep him awake. That and his fitful nightmares and half formed, desperate thoughts.
He discounted the matter of the witness. That was fact and sheer bad luck, but then there was the issue of the so called exhibits. Where had they got his lighter from? And what was even more worrying, Humble called it the first exhibit. There were more? What might they be? What could they be? And how had they arrived anywhere near a dead prostitute? That really concerned him. He was innocent of any crime – well, murder, anyway – he knew, but someone had somehow obtained his property and placed it in a murder scene. To what end? For once in his life, the disparate strands of thought running through his head started to come together. Although he was pleased to achieve it, the outcome was not pleasant. He was innocent of the crime he was being held for. There was ‘evidence’ that seemingly connected him with the crime. He suddenly appreciated the truth underlying the clichés, ‘blood running cold’ and ‘bowels turning to water’. He shuddered and rushed to the seatless toilet behind the half wall in the corner of his cell. He daren’t sit on it, he knew too much about what went on in police cells and the sort of people that usually frequented them. He hovered uncomfortably over it whilst his bowels emptied, all the while belatedly thinking, You bloody, bloody fool. You’ve been set up.
The Perfect Crime Page 14
