by Graham Ison
‘I’m obliged to inform you that you are entitled to have a solicitor present.’
‘No thanks. Waste of money,’ said Forbes. He leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. ‘Who grassed on me?’ he asked, the criminal argot sounding incongruous in his educated tones. ‘Was it Lavinia Crosby?’
‘No, it wasn’t. When we visited Mrs Crosby last Friday she denied having seen you for at least six weeks.’
Forbes smiled. ‘Good old Lavinia,’ he said. ‘Then it must’ve been the old guy who saw me shooting at a tree in Richmond Park.’
‘Not him either. He couldn’t identify you.’
‘How the hell did you find me, then?’ Forbes appeared mystified that we had tracked him down.
‘It’s called dedicated detective work,’ said Dave.
‘Well, I suppose you want to talk to me about the murders of Adekunle, Eberhardt and Schmidt.’ Forbes moved forward, rested his elbows on the table and smirked. ‘That’ll have taught the bastards not to swindle my grandma.’
The pistol recovered by the TSG officers from the Greenwich shop where Forbes had been arrested had already been examined by a ballistics expert.
She reported that the weapon was undoubtedly the firearm used to carry out all three murders and tallied with the rounds taken from the tree in Richmond Park. And the fingerprints on the weapon were those of Douglas Forbes. That collection of evidence proved to my satisfaction that we’d got our man ‘bang to rights’ as we say in the CID.
We didn’t really need a confession, but one always helps to wrap up a case beyond all reasonable doubt. We’d also had confirmation that Forbes’s fingerprints were found on the hammer and the jemmy seized by Dave. But even that didn’t prove that he’d actually used them to destroy part of Martin’s upper staircase. Not that we intended to charge him with criminal damage anyway.
‘A statement of your part in it would be a start,’ I said, surprised that Forbes seemed about to tell us all we wanted to know. Just to be on the safe side, I cautioned him again.
‘I’ve no regrets,’ said Forbes. ‘As I said, those bastards swindled my grandmother out of her life’s savings and left her practically destitute. They got what was coming to them. I was determined to make them pay. And I wanted them to know why I was killing them, and I wanted them to suffer. Particularly Adekunle.’
‘Do you admit to killing them?’ I posed the question formally.
‘Of course I do. What’s more, I thoroughly enjoyed killing them.’
‘D’you want to tell me about it? Or make a written statement?’
‘Both if you like.’ Forbes continued to languish in his chair as though he hadn’t a care in the world. He seemed to accept that he would be spending a large part of the rest of his life in prison.
‘How did you know who was behind the scam?’ asked Dave.
‘As a matter of fact, I had a bit of luck, old boy. When I was in Hamburg, I shacked up with Trudi Schmidt, and she invited me to take part in some porn films that were being made in a studio there. The money was good and it’s not often you get paid to spend all day screwing some good-looking German birds. They’re very sexy, you know, German birds. Samson Adekunle was at it, too, and he seemed to have plenty of spare cash. He told me that he lived in England, but came across to Hamburg or to a place called Kettwig – it’s near Essen – to keep an eye on the books for some guy called Lucien Carter. He told me of all the people he’d seen off, even mentioning that my grandmother had been one of his victims. And he mentioned her by name, not that I let on that she was my grandmother. But it was that admission by Adekunle gave me the idea to seek some retribution.’
‘Did you ever meet Lucien Carter?’ I asked.
‘No. I couldn’t find out where he was, at least not until I saw Adekunle in London. He told me that Carter lived in the States. In New York, he said.’
‘Carter’s dead,’ I said. ‘Murdered in Rikers prison in New York.’
‘Oh, jolly good,’ said Forbes, and laughed. ‘Saved me the job. I hope he suffered.’
‘Did you have anything to do with Carter’s murder?’
‘I wish I had, but I’ve never been to New York.’
‘Go on, Mr Forbes.’
‘Yeah, well, I asked Adekunle what his angle was and he quite openly told me about the scam he and Trudi were running along with a German guy called Eberhardt. In fact, he asked me if I wanted a piece of the action because they could always use a well spoken English guy to persuade punters to part with their spondulicks. He reckoned I’d got a good telephone voice. I don’t know how he came to that conclusion; I’d never spoken to him on the phone.’ Forbes laughed again; it was almost maniacal; he seemed to find some amusement in his murdering spree and unwittingly revealed his vicious side. ‘Well, I’ll do most things, but I drew the line at that sort of fiddle, mainly because my grandmother had been fleeced by some of these boiler-room bastards. But I made out I was interested.’
‘How did you find Adekunle in England?’ asked Dave.
‘Easy. I told him I’d contact him when I was back in London. He gave me his address in Paddington. Clancy Street it was, and that’s where I started. I called on him and after a little gentle persuasion he provided me with Eberhardt’s email address.’
‘I think it was a little more than gentle persuasion,’ put in Dave.
‘You could say that.’ Forbes grinned. ‘As for the rest, I guess you know it all. Once Adekunle had given up the address, I sent Eberhardt an email and suggested he came over. Then I told him to park in Bendview Road, Richmond, and that’s where I killed him. I know that area rather well, you see; I lived in Petersham years ago. It was a bonus that Trudi was with him too.’ He sounded quite proud of his ingenuity in luring his two victims to their death.
‘And you claim to know nothing about the murder of Lucien Carter in Rikers,’ I said.
‘I might’ve murdered the three over here, Mr Brock, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about setting up a contract killer to take out a guy in a prison in the Big Apple, if that’s what you’re suggesting. As I said, I’ve never been there.’ Forbes was impeccably polite, as he had been throughout the interview, but I was not about to forget that he’d tried to kill Dave and me, to say nothing of Dan Mason.
‘Why did you pick Guy Wilson’s address when you told Eberhardt where to park his camper van?’ I asked.
‘Who the hell’s Guy Wilson?’
‘He lives at 21 Bendview Road, immediately opposite the place where you murdered Eberhardt and Schmidt,’ said Dave.
‘Really? It just happened to be a house with a suitable grass verge opposite it,’ said Forbes. ‘I didn’t know anything about any Guy Wilson.’ He laughed again. ‘I’ll bet you gave him a hard time.’
‘By the way,’ said Dave, ‘there was ten thousand pounds in Adekunle’s safe at the time you murdered him.’
‘What?’ Forbes appeared shocked. ‘Christ, old boy, if I’d known about that, I’d’ve had it off him and given it to grandma.’
‘As a matter of interest, Mr Forbes,’ said Dave. ‘Was there a reason for you picking the name Derek Ford as an alias?’
‘Yes,’ said Forbes. ‘It was a name that had the same initials as my real name. I have monogrammed handkerchiefs, you see.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Dave.
‘D’you wish to make a written statement about all this, Mr Forbes?’ I asked.
‘Why not?’ responded Forbes breezily. ‘Passes the time.’
It took Dave six and a half hours to write down Forbes’s account of the murders he had perpetrated, and when it was finished Forbes signed it without demur.
On the Friday morning, Douglas Forbes appeared before the district judge at the City of Westminster magistrates court in Horseferry Road. After a short hearing he was remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey eight days hence.
Now the really difficult part began: the preparation of the report for the Crown Prosecution Service. As I’ve o
ften said, the paperwork’s a damned sight harder than the investigation.
Before we got on with the matter in hand, I received a phone call from Joe Daly at the American Embassy.
Insofar as the murder of Lucien Carter in Rikers was concerned, the NYPD had been unable to discover who had killed him. Since the last speculative suggestion that it was a prison gang boss, the consensus now was that it was probably something as simple as Carter having looked at his attacker with the wrong expression on his face. Such are the vicissitudes of an inmate’s psyche that a simple smirk can cost a man his life.
Fortunately it wasn’t my problem.
Following his appearance at the magistrates court, the lawyers at the Crown Prosecution Service had decided to indict Forbes with all three murders. Usually they would have kept two of them up their sleeve in case he was found Not Guilty on the first, or a guilty verdict was overturned on appeal. Not a bad idea, considering how fickle English juries can be. But on this occasion they were as sure as they could be that he wouldn’t be acquitted. The theft of the pistol from the gun club in Germany was ‘left on file’, the lawyers having decided that it would be too difficult to prove apart from being pointless.
TWENTY
‘I reckon you must have a season ticket for this place, guv’nor.’ The City of London policeman nodded as we entered the Central Criminal Court at Old Bailey, ready to do battle with Forbes’s nit-picking defence lawyers. In my days as a uniformed constable we had to salute senior officers, but nowadays it appeared that a nod and a witty remark would suffice.
Dave and I sat down in the well of Number One Court, standing up again almost immediately as the Common Serjeant appeared to take his seat on the bench.
I glanced up at the public gallery and saw that Douglas Forbes’s parents, Philip and Nancy Forbes, were there, but of Lady Fairfax there was no sign. That, however, didn’t surprise me. Not only was she probably too infirm to travel from Pinner, but I imagined that the stress of the trial would have been too much for her to bear. It had always struck me in the past how protective grandmothers can be of their grandsons, no matter how wayward they were.
‘Put up the prisoner,’ cried the clerk in the theatrical tones that is a prelude to the unveiling of that tragicomic panoply that passes for British justice.
The tall figure of Douglas Forbes appeared in the dock between two prison officers. He was immaculately suited and clearly fully confident of himself. He half bowed to the judge, adjusted his tie and shot his cuffs.
‘Douglas Forbes, you are charged with the wilful murder of Samson Adekunle in the County of London on or about the fifteenth of July. Against the Peace. How say you upon this indictment?’
‘Not guilty, My Lord,’ said Forbes in a strong voice, and glanced around the courtroom with a smile.
Presumably this plea of innocence had been made on the advice of his counsel. But I was cynical enough to believe that it was the barrister’s way of stringing out his daily fee, known in the law trade as a ‘refresher’.
The clerk put the other two indictments, the murders of Hans Eberhardt and Trudi Schmidt, and received that same plea of Not Guilty to each.
‘Bring in the jury,’ said the judge.
Dave and I left the court. We knew what would happen next and we’d seen it all before. Opposing counsel would do battle about which of the potential jurors was suitable and which was not. It was a racing certainty that anyone clutching the Daily Telegraph and wearing a tie, particularly one that appeared to denote something, would be peremptorily challenged by defence counsel. Not that that would be a terribly clever move on this occasion, given Forbes’s background and upbringing. That said, however, such persons of substance are more likely to condemn one of their own who has erred, than not. But finally a jury of twelve ‘upstanding’ citizens that was more or less acceptable to both sides would be formally empanelled.
Prosecuting counsel would then open for the Crown, outlining what she proposed to prove, and that would be followed by defence counsel’s opening address. If he felt like it. Sometimes the defence would reserve that right until later. No doubt there was a reason for this, perhaps even a legal requirement, but I was never too interested in the machinations of so-called justice.
It wasn’t until the morning of the second day that I was called to give evidence.
Crown counsel, an attractive woman in her mid-forties with blonde hair that hung well beneath the back of her lawyer’s wig, led me through the details of the interview I’d conducted with Forbes.
Defence counsel rose to cross-examine. ‘Detective Inspector Brock . . .’ he began.
‘Detective Chief Inspector, sir,’ I said.
‘Ah, quite so. My apologies.’ Forbes’s barrister spent a few moments examining his brief while he absorbed this initial setback. It’s always a good move to stop defence counsel dead in their tracks. It tends to throw them off balance just when they’re poised to strike with their first debilitating question. Well, debilitating in their view.
‘Now then, Chief Inspector.’ Forbes’s counsel quickly recovered from my interruption and afforded me what he imagined to be a disarming smile. ‘It strikes me that my client confessed to these murders all too readily. I would suggest to you that it was strange that he should have done so.’
I felt like saying that he didn’t have much of a choice, given the evidence stacked against him, but I confined myself to staring back at counsel.
‘Well, do you have an answer, Chief Inspector?’
‘If you have a question, sir,’ I said, doing my thick copper impersonation. I noticed the whisper of a smile crossing the judge’s face.
‘Let me rephrase it as a question, then.’ The barrister sighed audibly. ‘I put it to you that my client was coerced in some way into making what seems to be a full and frank confession. Is that not true?’
‘No, sir, it is not. The entire interview was recorded, as you will know, and the recording is available to the court should it so desire.’
‘Yes, yes, but what went on before the recording machine was switched on?’
‘Nothing evidential, sir.’
‘Thank you, Chief Inspector.’ Forbes’s counsel took one or two more sideswipes about procedural points, but was unable to cast any doubt on the substance of my testimony. But he had to try, I suppose; that’s what he was being paid for.
Dave followed me into the witness box and ‘proved’ the written statement he’d taken from Forbes.
Doctor Henry Mortlock gave his damning evidence, describing in lurid detail the injuries to Samson Adekunle’s body he’d found when he’d examined it. Just to drive the point home, he sought the judge’s permission to display, on a large screen, photographs taken at Clancy Street that showed the slumped and naked figure of Adekunle still secured to the kitchen chair in which he’d been found. The depiction of the Nigerian’s butchered corpse produced expressions of revulsion on the faces of the jury. Two of the female members actually turned away from the horrific images.
And as if that were not sufficient, Mortlock then displayed photographs of the chargrilled bodies of Eberhardt and Schmidt in the camper van, and later on his slab at the mortuary, and went on to describe, in graphic detail, the cause of their deaths.
The expert witness in ballistics, a young woman named Dr Jo Clark, displayed photographs on the large screen and gave evidence of the rounds taken from the three bodies. She explained such mysteries as striation and rifling characteristics, muzzle velocity and calibre. She talked of examining the pistol seized at Greenwich and how she had arrived at the irrefutable conclusion that it was the weapon used in all three murders.
Defence counsel continued to prove that he was earning his legal-aid fee, and rose to query the testimony regarding the rounds recovered from the tree in Richmond Park.
‘Could those rounds not have been damaged when they were removed from the tree, Doctor Clark?’
‘No. They were removed by a forensic examiner experienced in su
ch matters. That examiner can be called, if so required.’ Jo Clark turned towards the judge as she said that.
‘Are the rounds taken from the tree at all relevant to the murders?’ asked the judge in a dry voice.
‘No, perhaps not, My Lord,’ said counsel, and sat down.
The remaining members of our little cast of players testified to their own particular area of involvement in the investigation, and so the trial dragged on to the eighth day and its inevitable conclusion.
‘Members of the jury are you agreed upon your verdict?’ asked the clerk, when the jury trooped back into court following its deliberations. It had taken them a mere forty-five minutes, and that had probably included a coffee break.
‘We are,’ said the foreman.
‘On the first count on the indictment, that of the murder of Samson Adekunle, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?’
‘Guilty.’
‘And is that the verdict of you all?’
‘It is.’
It came as no surprise that the jury also found Forbes guilty on the other two counts as well.
‘Very well,’ said the judge. ‘The prisoner is remanded in custody to appear here in two weeks’ time for sentencing. Take him down.’
Forbes half bowed to the judge, winked at the most attractive of the women jurors and descended the dock steps.
And two weeks later here we were again.
The Common Serjeant, his severe face seeming to imply regret that he no longer had the option of donning a black cap, gazed at Forbes for some seconds before speaking.
‘Douglas Forbes, you have been found guilty of three of the most heinous crimes of murder that it has ever been my misfortune to try. Although your counsel made a half-hearted attempt to convey the impression that you were of diminished responsibility, I can see no justification for that submission. You set about, deliberately and with malice aforethought, to seek out your unfortunate victims and murder them in cold blood. As an example of premeditated killings it is difficult for me to recall a precedent. You will go to prison for life on each count of the indictment and shall not be considered for parole until you have served at least thirty years. Take him down.’
