In Vino Veritas

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Yes, understood,’ Yewdall commented. ‘How did you and Victoria meet?’

  ‘At a yoga evening class which was run by a highly skilled yoga teacher,’ Sylvia Hubbard explained while still keeping her arms above her head. ‘It was for women only and was a bit pricey when compared to the local authority courses held in the town hall or in a church hall. They are cold and draughty places with suspect teachers and they allow men to join, most of whom just want to ogle women in leotards. Anyway, me and Victoria met and we clicked pretty much immediately. We began to go for coffee together and after the course had finished we decided to continue working out together in the living room of her home in St John’s Wood. We settled into a twice-a-week routine – sometimes we met thrice a week if we felt enthusiastic. Other times we only managed once a week, but twice a week was about the norm. This was before I married, when all I had was a cramped studio flat, so because of that it all had to be done at her house.’

  ‘What was their marriage like?’ Yewdall asked. ‘What impression did you get about that aspect of her life?’

  ‘Strained.’ Sylvia Hubbard slowly lowered her arms and breathed out as she did so. ‘It’s all in the breathing,’ she explained. ‘Yoga is all about breathing. You breathe in as you adopt a position, and you breathe out as you leave it.’

  ‘The Woodhuyse’s marriage,’ Ainsclough prompted.

  ‘Ah, yes … quiet but strained when I first knew Victoria. Then came the separation caused by his infidelity, I believe, although they were sleeping separately by then, but once his affair became known, well, then it was blood on the wall time … and I saw a side to Victoria which up to that point I had not known had existed.’ Sylvia Hubbard rested her hands on her knees. ‘It came as quite a revelation. You think you know someone and then …’

  ‘Oh,’ Penny Yewdall pressed, ‘what was the previously hidden aspect of her personality?’

  ‘It was an anger as cold and as venomous as you are ever likely to meet.’ Sylvia Hubbard placed her palms together and extender her arms, bent at the elbow, above her head. ‘It was an anger bordering on hatred. She seemed to be really burning up with it, but, you know, I sensed that it was an anger which was not really directed at her husband, but that the divorce and her determination to take her husband for anything and everything she could take him for was in actual fact a vehicle to express her anger about another, hidden, more deeply buried issue in her life. It seemed to me that her husband’s unfaithfulness was a kind of trigger which released a whole maelstrom of emotion which she had hitherto kept a lid on, deeply buried. It was as if it just needed a spark … and the separation was said spark.’

  ‘That is interesting.’ Penny Yewdall quickly glanced round the room. ‘Do you know what the buried anger was in respect of?’

  ‘No … no idea at all.’ Sylvia Hubbard breathed out slowly as she lowered her hands. ‘And the speed …’

  ‘The speed?’ Yewdall queried.

  ‘Yes, the speed at which you assume such a position. You must not snap into it, rather you must move slowly and deliberately and hold the position … and then move slowly out of it. Yoga is body position, the correct breathing and the correct speed of movement.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Tom Ainsclough scowled at Sylvia Hubbard, ‘but could we please focus on the reason for our visit, if you don’t mind?’

  ‘Focus,’ Sylvia Hubbard repeated. ‘Focus. I like that word. Yes, we can focus. The focus is that there was another issue in Victoria’s life, something other than her marriage and the state of same. She had a history; she had a monster in her past which she was having trouble keeping buried, and which was emerging with great fury at about the time her marriage crumbled. But exactly what that issue … that ferocious demon might have been, I am afraid I cannot tell you.’ Sylvia Hubbard placed a very strong emphasis on the word ‘I’.

  It was an emphasis which did not go unnoticed by Penny Yewdall, who remarked, ‘But you might know someone who can? Is that what you are saying? There is someone you can suggest who might know what it was that Victoria Keynes was so very angry about?’

  ‘I might. I might indeed.’ Sylvia Hubbard extended her legs in front of her, keeping her ankles together and her knees flat on the carpet. She then reached forward and held the soles of her feet with both hands, and did so with consummate ease. ‘But whether the lady I am thinking of can tell you, or will tell you, I cannot say. That will have to be seen. I dare say that all you can do is to ask her.’

  ‘I dare say we can do that,’ Tom Ainsclough replied. ‘So … who do we ask?’

  ‘You ask a venerable lady called Dafne Zipes.’ Sylvia Hubbard lowered her head and breathed deeply, then exhaled slowly. ‘I kid you not, that is her name, Zipes … spelled just as it sounds Z-I-P-E-S. A strange name, you might think. Her first name, her given name on the other hand, is not spelled as you might expect. It is in fact spelled D-A-F-N-E. She is Dafne Zipes.’

  ‘A foreign lady?’ Yewdall asked.

  ‘From Continental Europe. I don’t know her history, but she does speak with a European accent, although her English is word perfect,’ Sylvia Hubbard explained. ‘I just wish my French was half as good as her English.’

  ‘Who is she?’ Penny Yewdall wrote ‘Dafne Zipes’ in her notepad.

  ‘I just told you,’ Sylvia Hubbard replied with her head resting on her knees. ‘She is Dafne Zipes. That is who she is. She is a highly skilled and much experienced psychotherapist. I was advised to seek her help by a friend of mine, and I contacted her and she offered me a series of sessions. I had an issue … I was unable to forgive my mother for her alcoholism which blighted my childhood and my young adulthood. She was able to help me to achieve forgiveness and that enabled me to move on and develop relationships which eventually led to my marriage, although my real marrying years had by then passed me by and my husband is significantly older than me. We have no children ourselves, but my husband has two sons and two daughters from his first marriage, so I have some young people to take an interest in. I enjoy being a stepmother to my stepdaughters; they are at that age where they seek a mother’s advice and guidance. All four are at boarding school, so the house is quite empty at the moment.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Penny Yewdall offered. ‘You must feel childlessness quite deeply.’

  ‘Well … it’s not a perfect life.’ Sylvia Hubbard kept her head down and continued breathing slowly, deeply and steadily. ‘All the trappings of wealth you see in this house, and the building itself, might seem impressive but they hide a lot of emotional aridity. But to continue … to focus … I told Victoria about Dafne Zipes and Victoria made an appointment to see her. After an initial visit I understand she had a series of regular sessions. Dafne Zipes was then, and I hope still is, a real sage of a woman, just brimming with wisdom. I am sure that she will be able to help you … if she is still with us. She was in her late middle years when I saw her about twelve or thirteen years ago, and a lot can happen in that time.’ Sylvia Hubbard leaned up slowly and gracefully, and once again adopted the lotus position. ‘There will be an issue of confidentiality to be addressed and she may have to take advice from whichever governing body she subscribes to but that will also have to be seen.’ Sylvia Hubbard stood. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and fetch my address book. It contains Dafne’s address, or at least what her address was when I knew her, thirteen summers ago as it was erstwhile, when the ancients ruled …’

  ‘Are you still getting all the food you need, Davy?’ Victor Swannell smiled as he sat down next to Frankie Brunnie and opposite David ‘Chinese Geordie Davy’ Danby in the agent’s room in HM Prison Brixton. ‘I mean, you did say that a short spell in the slammer would suit you.’

  ‘It would be good for your health.’ Brunnie nodded. ‘Improved diet, three meals a day, clean bed linen … it must be quite an improvement in your standard of living.’

  ‘Yes.’ Danby nodded. ‘It’s true, I get all that but I’m wondering if I wanted to do a spell in p
rison because it looks inviting from where I was, like the other man’s grass is always greener, because there are things I am already missing … little things have become big things, like what I want to watch each evening on TV, deciding when to eat and also getting to decide what to eat, but all in all, if I don’t stay too long it has been good for yours truly.’

  ‘Yes.’ Victor Swannell tapped his pen on his notepad. ‘It’s interesting that you say “if I don’t stay too long” because the truth of the matter is that you are likely to be here, or in another HM prison a little longer than you might have probably imagined.’

  ‘Oh …?’ David Danby looked up at Victor Swannell, and a look of worry crossed his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, we found the other lock-up, Davy,’ Frankie Brunnie explained. ‘The one in Stratford – the one on Colville Road, Stratford.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I pay rent on that one as well,’ Danby muttered. ‘I forgot about that rental.’

  ‘How convenient,’ Brunnie grunted with a clear note of sarcasm in his voice. ‘How very, very convenient.’

  ‘Honest,’ Danby pleaded with open palms, ‘it slipped my mind, honest it did, Mr Brunnie.’

  ‘Yes …’ Brunnie replied. ‘We have noticed that things often slip from felons minds from time to time.’

  ‘Indeed we have noticed that,’ Swannell added coldly, ‘especially when the remembering of said fact could make things very difficult for the felon concerned.’

  ‘As in this case,’ Brunnie continued, ‘because, unlike the first lock-up in Poplar, which contained nothing and had in fact been sanitized, the lock-up in Stratford contained weapons … many weapons.’

  ‘Weapons!’ Danby gasped. ‘I thought it was empty like the lock-up in Poplar.’

  ‘Did you now?’ Swannell smiled. He looked round the agent’s room: the white tiled walls, the hard floor, both scrubbed clean, the filament bulb attached to the ceiling, the block of opaque glass high in the wall to allow in natural light.

  ‘Yes,’ Danby continued to plead his innocence, ‘I really did think it was empty. It might be used for something now and again, but was kept empty most of the time.’

  ‘Well, Davy …’ Brunnie explained, ‘… far from being empty, it contained firearms – an awful lot of firearms, sufficient to equip a large number of men and possibly a few women who might be intent on perpetrating felonious acts.’ Brunnie paused. ‘It puts you in the frame for more … more … shall we say, serious charges.’

  ‘I tell you I didn’t know about no guns.’ Danby’s voice became high-pitched. ‘Honest I didn’t. I just paid the rent on the lock-ups.’

  ‘So how did it work, Davy?’ Swannell asked calmly, yet with noticeable authority. ‘What’s the SP? How was it done?’

  ‘Each month, on the first Monday each month, even if it’s a bank holiday, I get a brown paper envelope pushed through my letter box. It contains a wedge. Hard cash,’ Danby explained.

  ‘Yes, we know what a “wedge” is,’ Brunnie replied icily. ‘Felons do not use cheques or credit cards – a wedge is used in non-sequential notes which can’t be traced back to the sender. Cheques and credit cards and brand-new notes can be traced back to their point of origin.’

  ‘Yes … well … the lolly is to pay the rent on the lock-ups, just the two of them, and there’s a bit left over which is my drink, for my time and my assistance.’ Danby spoke softly. ‘It makes it worth my while.’

  ‘So who sends the wedge?’ Brunnie asked.

  ‘Dunno … honest,’ Danby whined. ‘I mean, I don’t have a lot of dosh coming in and paying the rent on the lock-ups once a month is useful. I get a drink out of it. It helps me get through the first week of each month. I never get tempted to steal the rent money because I have seen what happens to geezers who steal from the Big Man, whoever the Big Man is, and even skimming is very naughty – fingers get broken for skimming, arms broken for stealing and you have to pay it all back plus interest, if you want to live. So I take the wedge; it keeps me in beer for the first week of each month.’

  ‘How did all this start?’ Brunnie asked.

  ‘And for how long has it been going on?’ Swannell probed.

  David Danby lowered his head and remained still and silent.

  ‘The lock-up containing the guns and ammunition has been cleared out.’ Swannell broke the silence. He leaned forward, folded his arms and rested them on the table top. ‘We debated whether to keep the lock-up under surveillance, but it did not seem to be used very often. It was very musty inside, the air was very stale, so our boss, Mr Vicary, decided to remove all the contents and bring them into police custody to keep them comfortably out of harm’s way. So one little gunsmith is going to be exceedingly unhappy when he finds out that his stock-in-trade has been confiscated and will be destroyed. He will not be best pleased.’

  ‘Not best pleased at all,’ Brunnie echoed. ‘And you know how safe you are in prison, Davy. If the Big Man wants you iced, then iced you will be … even in prison. Prison is no guarantee of safety, but I dare say you know that, Davy.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know that.’ Danby breathed hard.

  ‘And the further down the feeding trough you are,’ Brunnie emphasized, ‘the more vulnerable you are.’

  ‘All right.’ Swannell leaned back in his chair. ‘We’ve got plenty of time, so let’s get the easy bit out of the way first, then we’ll take names. How long has this been extant?’

  ‘Extant?’ Danby looked questioningly at Swannell.

  ‘Alive … in existence,’ Swannell advised, ‘but I mean how long has this arrangement being going on?’

  ‘Fifteen, sixteen years.’ Danby sighed. ‘Possibly more. The years just fly by.’

  ‘So how did it start?’ Swannell pressed. ‘You must have been approached by someone who knew that you were a wrong ’un.’

  ‘Yes, I was approached,’ Danby replied. ‘It was in the Scrubs, the last prison sentence I served … coming to the end of my bird, just a couple of weeks to go after a two-stretch and this other lag asked me if I wanted a job as a drop man. I had to take rental on two lock-ups … in my name … any I could find, and pay the rent on them each month. Don’t ask no questions. Each month the rent will be put through my letter box plus a little extra … I get to keep the extra.’

  ‘Nice and simple.’ Swannell smiled again. ‘But I can see a problem; I can see a flaw in that little story.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Danby asked in a frightened tone. ‘It’s the truth. I am not keeping anything back.’

  ‘You’re keeping a lot back, Davy,’ Swannell replied, ‘but for the time being, just tell us what happens when the owner of the lock-ups increases the rent. How do you then tell the geezer who drops the wedge through your letter box that your rent has gone up, which it would do each year?’

  ‘I have a phone number to ring,’ Danby sighed, ‘or I go to the battle cruiser.’

  ‘Who do you talk to?’ Brunnie asked.

  ‘The lag who put me up to the job. The old lag who approached me when I was in Wormwood Scrubs,’ Danby explained. ‘Him and another geezer.’

  ‘And you tell him about the rent?’ Swannell clarified.

  ‘Yes, and I hand him a note on headed paper from the landlord to prove the rent has increased.’ Danby wiped sweat from his brow. ‘To show I’m on the up and up and that I am not pulling no flanker.’ Danby paused. ‘It was always all OK. The increased rent was paid and my little drink went up as well.’ Danby paused. ‘But I never knew what it was being used for, I never knew about no shooters … honest.’

  ‘You just hand over the rent on a gunsmith’s arsenal and you carry dead bodies, the bodies of murder victims away in the back of your van to a shallow grave … or if they’re in bits, you feed them to the river.’ Swannell spoke slowly and softly. ‘That’s quite sufficient for you to collect a long stretch, but aiding and abetting the illegal use of firearms … that’s a bit naughty, Davy, really is a bit naughty. It puts you in line to
be charged with accessory to murder. Accessory after the fact is bad enough, but if you do something to enable the murder to take place, that is being an accessory before the fact and that is more serious and invites a stiffer sentence.’ Brunnie paused. ‘And if we can link any of those guns to any unsolved murder … or murders … then each successful link is a potential charge against you for accessory before the fact.’

  ‘We’re testing the guns now,’ Swannell added, ‘or at least our firearms unit is. They’ll examine the striations on the bullet caused when the gun is fired, and if the bullet or bullets which have been test-fired can be matched conclusively to bullets recorded from unsolved murder cases … well … we might not be getting the actual shooter but you’ll be going down for a long stretch.’

  ‘It’s time to get out your dancing shoes, Davy,’ Brunnie suggested. ‘Give them a polish and put them on and tie them up nice and tight.’

  ‘Dancing shoes? I haven’t got any, Mr Brunnie,’ Danby whined. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What I mean, Davy,’ Brunnie explained, ‘is that it’s time for you to do the old-time favourite … the work-for-yourself-or-work-against-yourself two-step because you’re in deep, Davy, you’re in very deep … well over your head. We need names. The more you help us now before the reports start coming back from the forensic laboratory then the better it will be for you.’

  ‘You know, Davy,’ Swannell added, ‘“Big Andy” Cragg hasn’t got two brain cells to rub together, but even he is sensible enough to know when the game is up. He’s turned Queen’s Evidence and he’s now in a protected persons unit.’