Make Them Pay

by Graham Ison

  ‘That’s correct, sir,’ I said.

  Forbes nodded. ‘I read it in the newspaper, but fortunately my wife rarely watches the news on television and only ever scans the Daily Mail. But I quite understand that you can’t say any more. Sub judice and all that.’ He was clearly a man who joined up the dots very quickly and had probably concluded that we wanted his son for murder.

  ‘Looks like Douglas Forbes is our man, guv,’ said Kate, on the way back to Curtis Green.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said cautiously. ‘It’s one thing to have our suspicions, but I’ve a nasty feeling that we’re going to have one hell of a job finding him.’

  ‘D’you think his involvement with Trudi Schmidt has any relevance?’ asked Kate, braking sharply to avoid a cyclist who seemed to think that traffic lights didn’t apply to him. ‘Could it have anything to do with the fact that she was a porn actress?’

  ‘In what way, Kate?’

  ‘An act of revenge for betraying him by having it off with other blokes on film.’

  I laughed. ‘I doubt it, but that wouldn’t explain why Eberhardt and Adekunle were killed, unless Eberhardt was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And certainly wouldn’t be a motive for Lucien Carter’s murder. In fact I’d go further. I wouldn’t mind betting that Forbes was the unidentified sexual athlete that Dave and I saw on the DVD when we went to Essen.’

  I left it until the following morning to make a start on tracking down Douglas Forbes. But from what his parents had said, it wasn’t going to be an easy task. And so it proved.

  The address that Philip Forbes had given us for his son turned out not to be the sleazy bedsit he’d suggested it was, but a good quality flat in a Georgian three-storied townhouse.

  I pressed the bell-push and waited.

  ‘Looks like he’s done a runner, guv,’ said Dave.

  ‘If he was ever here in the first place,’ I said, hoping that Dave would be wrong.

  I pressed the bell-push a couple more times. We were just about to give up and make enquiries at other apartments in the house when the intercom buzzer sounded.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘The police,’ I said.

  ‘Oh God! You’d better come on up, then. It’s one flight up. Door on the right.’

  We ascended the stairs to the first floor. The door to the apartment was opened by a twenty-something languid blonde who looked as though we’d roused her from a deep sleep. She raised her left arm high on the edge of the door for support so that her black silk wrap parted to reveal a matching camisole and shorts.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked, running a hand through her untidy hair and yawning.

  ‘Five past eleven,’ I said.

  ‘In the morning,’ added Dave.

  ‘Good God, is that all?’

  ‘We’re police officers,’ I announced again.

  ‘So you said. What’s happened now? Has someone stolen my bloody car?’

  Oh, not again, I thought. What is it about the police and the public’s precious motor cars?

  ‘We’re looking for Douglas Forbes,’ said Dave.

  ‘You and me both, darling. He owes me two hundred quid,’ said the blonde, casting a lingering eye over Dave. ‘You’d better come in. I’m just about to make some coffee.’

  Uninvited, Dave and I sat down in a couple of armchairs that I suspected had been chosen for their style rather than their comfort. The blonde stationed herself behind a counter that separated the kitchenette from the seating area and fiddled about with an electric kettle and a cafetière. Eventually she poured coffee into three bone-china mugs and handed them round before sitting down opposite us.

  ‘Are you Mrs Forbes, by any chance?’ I asked, sipping at the coffee that I was pleased to note was excellent.

  ‘Not bloody likely, darlings. I’m Lavinia Crosby.’ Her cultured, drawling voice matched what I’d always thought to be an upper-crust sort of first name. ‘I haven’t seen Dougie for over two months now, maybe longer.’

  ‘Were you two an item?’ asked Dave, employing modern day parlance to describe living together.

  ‘We were shacked up for a year, but it seemed like ten. Are you from the local cop shop?’

  ‘No, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock of New Scotland Yard and this is Detective Sergeant Poole.’

  ‘Oh, the big guns. Sounds as though Dougie’s in some sort of deep mire.’

  ‘We shan’t know until we talk to him, Miss Crosby,’ I said.

  ‘It’s Mrs Crosby, actually.’ Lavinia drew out the last word with an affected drawl. ‘Not that it matters a damn. Bertie buggered off a couple of years ago. Not set eyes on the ratbag from that day to this. He went to live in Switzerland I think. Or was it Austria?’ She glanced at her elegant Baume & Mercier wristwatch. ‘I’m glad you woke me up, actually. I’m supposed to be meeting a guy for lunch.’

  ‘Have you any idea where Douglas Forbes is, Mrs Crosby?’ I asked, tiring of her irrelevant responses.

  ‘Not a clue, darling,’ said Lavinia. ‘Dougie lived here for about a year, as I said, most of the time living on my money before he buggered off. Daddy didn’t approve of him, but then Daddy doesn’t approve of any of the guys I shack up with. Probably because he doesn’t like the way I spend the allowance he gives me.’ She shrugged at what she clearly thought to be gross parsimony on her father’s part.

  That came as no surprise. It sounded as though ‘Daddy’ was a shrewd judge of character if what we knew of Douglas Forbes was anything to go by. And that caused me to wonder what sort of wastrel Bertie Crosby must’ve been. And where he’d really gone and why, not that that was any of my business. But it did prompt a thought.

  ‘Was Bertie Crosby a stockbroker by any chance?’

  ‘A stockbroker?’ Lavinia laughed. ‘Bertie wasn’t anything,’ she said. ‘A leech is the only description that comes readily to mind.’

  ‘When did Douglas Forbes leave?’ I asked.

  ‘About six weeks ago, I suppose. I woke up one morning and there he was gone. Not seen him since.’ Although giving the impression of being a dizzy blonde bimbo, Lavinia Crosby was shrewd enough not to mention Forbes’s recent flying visit.

  ‘Did Douglas have a car?’ asked Dave.

  ‘He drove my Porsche most of the time, but he did have an old banger.’

  ‘What sort of car was this old banger?’

  ‘A VW I think. I know that one of the windows was broken, but he never got the bloody thing fixed. He was like that, you know. Just couldn’t be bothered. But that was Dougie all over.’

  ‘Which window?’ Dave too was beginning to get ratty with her meandering chatter.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Sergeant dear. I think it was the little one at the back. On the left-hand side. He’d never have got me out in the bloody thing, that’s for sure. More coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Dave took out his pocketbook. ‘D’you happen to know the number of his vehicle?’

  ‘Good God, no. I don’t collect car numbers. I don’t even know my own.’

  ‘If he should happen to reappear, perhaps you’d ask him to contact me as a matter of urgency, Mrs Crosby.’ I handed Lavinia one of my cards, knowing full well that Forbes wouldn’t return or that if he did he’d disappear again like early morning mist in the rising sun. It was actually a waste of one of my cards.

  EIGHTEEN

  Back at Curtis Green, Dave got straight on to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s computer at Swansea.

  ‘Bingo!’ he exclaimed. ‘We’ve got an index mark for Forbes’s Volkswagen.’ He switched to the PNC and fed in the number. ‘Aha! It’s flagged up for no insurance. What a surprise. I wonder why he hasn’t been stopped by the Black Rats. They’re obviously not trying hard enough. They should’ve spotted him by now.’

  ‘Perhaps his car’s in a garage somewhere,’ I said, ‘or he’s flogged it or it’s been broken up. But if Forbes still has it, the traffic police have got every justification for stopping
him and seizing his car. Make an entry on the PNC asking for him to be arrested, but not to be questioned other than regarding traffic offences.’ I paused. ‘And add the caveat “may be armed and dangerous”.’

  I retired to my office and embarked upon a series of phone calls.

  First of all, I contacted Horst Fischer in Essen and told him what we’d learned of Douglas Forbes.

  ‘He’s the obvious suspect for our murders, Horst,’ I said. ‘Furthermore, we’ve learned that he lived with Trudi Schmidt for a while in Hamburg.’

  ‘That’s interesting, Harry. D’you remember when you came to Essen that you saw a white man in the pornographic DVDs?’

  ‘Yes, I certainly did, Horst.

  ‘I’ve since spoken to the producers of those films and they identified that man as Douglas Forbes. At least,’ Horst added cautiously, ‘a man giving the name of Forbes.’

  That came as no surprise. Philip Forbes had obviously been wrong in assuming that his son had any acceptable standards of moral behaviour.

  I wondered if Forbes’s split with Trudi was not that she was a porn actress, but that she shared her favours with several other men, albeit on camera. But I dismissed that thought immediately. From our viewing of the DVD, we knew that Forbes, Adekunle and Trudi Schmidt had all been in shot at the same time. We also knew that Trudi had convictions for unlicensed prostitution, although Forbes probably didn’t know that. Or if he did, he didn’t care. The man was obviously a dissolute wastrel.

  ‘We’re attempting to find Forbes, Horst,’ I said, ‘but he’s proving to be somewhat elusive.’

  ‘It’s the way of criminals, Harry.’ Fischer and I clearly took a similar jaundiced view of the criminal fraternity. ‘Perhaps you’d let me know when you have arrested this man, then I can clear up all my loose ends. You know how it is with the paperwork, ja?’ He gave another of the raucous chuckles with which we’d become familiar during our stay in Essen.

  ‘Only too well, Horst. But from what we’ve learned, he might be in Germany.’

  ‘Give me his details and I’ll have him circulated on our national computer network.’

  ‘I’ll send you an email,’ I said, and promptly got Colin Wilberforce to do it.

  My next call was to Joe Daly at the American Embassy. I explained how far we’d got in our search for Douglas Forbes, and asked him if he’d received any further information about Lucien Carter’s murder in Rikers.

  ‘The NYPD have gotten zilch, Harry,’ said Joe. ‘There were twenty-five prisoners in the exercise yard when it happened. The correction officers saw nothing, and, believe it or not, all the prisoners went shtum.’

  ‘Oh, surely not, Joe,’ I said sarcastically.

  ‘Yeah, I know. It’s unbelievable,’ said Daly, matching my cynicism with his own. ‘Anyhow, straight after the incident the governor ordered an immediate lock-down and the COs did a thorough search, but no weapon was found. The autopsy report stated that Carter was killed with a single stab wound and died instantly. Anyway, that’s one more perp out of circulation.’

  ‘Looks like it’ll be another unsolved, then.’

  ‘I guess so. The received wisdom is that whoever was the top man among the prisoners saw Carter as some sort of threat and had him taken out. But I doubt we’ll ever know why.’

  Bearing in mind the time difference, I waited until three o’clock that afternoon before ringing Superintendent Duncan Gould of the Royal Bahamas Police Force.

  ‘Good afternoon, Duncan,’ I said, when Gould picked up. ‘It’s Harry Brock in London.’

  ‘Good morning to you, Harry. How’s your weather?’

  ‘The climate’s OK, Duncan, but the police work’s getting a bit complicated.’ I’d concluded from our previous conversation that Gould was obsessed with the weather. I told him about the murder of Lucien Carter in New York, but this was not news to him.

  ‘Yes, I heard, Harry. I’ve been in touch with the FBI and they filled me in. Still that’s one more criminal off the books,’ said Gould, echoing Daly’s reaction to Carter’s death. Policemen across the world took the same negative view of villains. ‘I’ve still got the matter of the frauds to deal with, though. We’ve come across quite a few people who’ve been swindled, probably by Carter. And we’re talking hundreds of thousands of Bahamian dollars here. Our dollar comes out to about two-thirds of a pound sterling, but it’s still a lot of money. However, that’s my problem. I hope you get your man, Harry.’

  ‘Oh, I will, Duncan. Rest assured of that,’ I said, and replaced the receiver.

  Despite my confident reply, I was by no means sure that I would be feeling Forbes’s collar in the near future. He could now be anywhere in the world, especially if he’d been tipped off, possibly by the languorous Lavinia Crosby who, I thought, had probably seen him more recently than she’d claimed to have done. I doubted though that Forbes’s father would’ve warned his son of our interest, even if he knew more than he’d told us about Douglas Forbes’s current whereabouts.

  But at least I didn’t have to worry any more about the worldwide boiler-room frauds for which Carter, Eberhardt, Schmidt and Adekunle had been responsible. That was a problem I would happily hand over to the Fraud Squad. Once our man was in custody.

  All we could do now was to sit back and wait. Very irritating, but once again the progress of our enquiry was in the hands of other people. I sent the team home for an early night with the proviso that if Forbes was located that evening or over the weekend, some of them would be called back to duty.

  I telephoned Gail and suggested dinner somewhere. Much to my delight, she suggested staying in and offered to prepare a meal at home.

  As I was in good time, I called in at a store in Kingston and bought Gail some Chanel Cristalle, her current favourite. Nothing like an expensive smelly to put a girl in a good mood.

  The weather still being hot and humid, I dropped by my flat and changed into a shirt and chinos.

  Gail had obviously taken the same view of the heat. Barefooted, she was wearing a saffron kaftan and, as I later discovered, nothing else.

  Both sets of French windows in her first floor sitting room were wide open, but it had made little difference to the temperature. I poured a large whisky for myself and prepared a gin and tonic for Gail.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve given any more thought to my suggestion of moving in with me, have you, darling?’ asked Gail, glancing impishly at me. She placed her glass on the coffee table and ran her finger down the side drawing a line in the condensation.

  ‘To be perfectly honest, darling, I’ve not had much time.’ Although I rarely talked about the Job when I was with her, I went on to explain about the discovery that Douglas Forbes was probably our murderer. ‘It all hinges on him being found,’ I said. ‘But I will give your idea some thought.’

  ‘I take it that you haven’t dismissed it, then,’ said Gail, repeating what she’d said to me at the bistro just over a week ago.

  ‘No, not at all.’ I’d made Douglas Forbes the excuse for not making a decision. But I knew that, once made, it would be irreversible and I didn’t want to rush into it. However, the signs of dissatisfaction I’d detected during my conversation with Bill Hunter were uppermost in my mind. Had I told him of Gail’s suggestion I’m sure he would have cautioned me against any precipitate move on my part. And that prompted a thought.

  ‘Does Charlie Hunter ever play away?’ I asked.

  Gail stared at me. ‘Whatever made you ask that?’

  ‘Nothing really. It was just that Bill sort of hinted that everything in their expensive garden wasn’t exactly lovely.’

  ‘Shall we have dinner first?’ Choosing not to continue a conversation about her friend, Gail stood up, pulling open the top of her kaftan and wafting air down the front. ‘Or later.’

  I knew exactly what she meant, and she knew that she’d posed a question that was only slightly less difficult for me to answer than whether I was to move in with her.

  ‘
I think we’d better have dinner first,’ I said.

  ‘Good, then we won’t have to rush.’

  I presumed she meant rushing what else we both had in mind.

  It was on the following Wednesday, five days later, that the first sighting of Douglas Forbes’s car was reported. Once again it was a vigilant constable who’d made the discovery, and she’d sighted it in Greenwich, in a backstreet not far from Trafalgar Road. The premises consisted of a general stores with a number of rooms above it.

  The woman officer had made purposely vague enquiries in the shop and had been told by an assistant that he thought the man who lived in one of the rooms above was the owner of the car, but his name was Derek Ford. At that point, the officer decided that she would report the matter to a senior officer and await further instructions.

  It turned out to be a very wise decision.

  The local detective chief inspector rang me and asked what action his people should take, given that Forbes was a suspect for three murders. I told him to do nothing other than to have a discreet eye kept on the premises, and that I would be there with my team ASAP. The DCI promised to have a few uniforms placed unobtrusively nearby.

  For a start, I assembled Kate Ebdon, Dave Poole, Tom Challis and John Appleby.

  ‘What about firearms?’ asked Dave.

  I shook my head. ‘There isn’t the time to get authorization,’ I said. ‘Anyway we’ll leave that to an armed response unit if we need to. I don’t want to get into a shoot-out with this guy if he turns nasty.’

  Forbes’s car, still with its broken window, was outside the shop. At least, the car registered in Forbes’s name was there. It was possible that Forbes had disposed of it and failed to notify the DVLA of the transfer, but I hoped not.

  Dave and I entered the shop, leaving Challis and Appleby in one of the two cars that had brought us to Greenwich. The territorial support group was parked a few yards down the road and Kate Ebdon went to brief the inspector in charge on the current state of play.