by Graham Ison
‘Did they get on, Cliff and Sharon?’ It struck me that an air hostess and an accountant seemed a strange match. But it takes all sorts.
‘As far as I know. Mind you, they were an odd couple. She’s what I’d call a party girl. Loved getting around, so I’ve heard, but old Cliff was a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. He’d rather stay at home watching TV and making his model aeroplanes.’
‘Did they have disagreements about their social life? Or lack of it.’
‘I never heard them arguing, if that’s what you mean. Mind you, Sharon spends a lot of time away on account of her job.’
‘Sharon Gregory said that you and your wife were very good friends with her and her husband.’
‘Really? I don’t know where she got that idea from. We hardly ever spoke to them. We’re just neighbourly, if you know what I mean. Pass the time of day whenever we see them. The usual sort of thing.’
‘She also told us that her husband was a heavy drinker. Did you know anything about that?’ I knew, from what Henry Mortlock had said, that this was unlikely, but I was interested to hear if Sharon had ever complained that her husband drank to excess.
‘I find that hard to believe somehow. I asked Cliff if he fancied going for a drink down the local pub once, when Sharon was away, but he turned me down. He said he didn’t drink much and didn’t like pubs anyway. As a matter of fact, we invited him and Sharon in for a drink last Christmas Eve and Cliff only had the one glass of champagne. No, he’s not a drinker in my book. Leastways, not unless he’s one of those secret alcoholics. They’re a bit devious from what I’ve heard. I knew a bloke once—’
‘Can we get back to the point, Mr Miller?’ Dave held up his hand. ‘Sharon’s a good-looking girl, isn’t she?’ he asked, intent on finding out whether she was not averse to the occasional affair.
‘She certainly is,’ said Miller warmly. ‘And she’s a bit of a flirt is Sharon.’
‘What makes you think that, Mr Miller?’ I asked.
‘Well, when she’s not in uniform, she always dresses in a way that’s sure to get her noticed. And just to be on the safe side, I wouldn’t take a chance on being alone with her if I could possibly avoid it. As a matter of fact, she rang me one morning about a month ago and said she couldn’t turn off the shower and could I go round. She said Cliff was out and she didn’t know what to do.’
‘And did you go round?’
‘No, I wasn’t prepared to risk it. If she’d just got out of the shower there’s no telling what I might’ve walked into, so to speak. I sent the missus instead; she’s nearly as good at dealing with that sort of thing as I am. But on the whole, I’d say the Gregorys were an ideal couple. Mind you, it probably helps with them not being thrown together all day and every day.’
‘Mrs Gregory told us that she was naked when you found her.’
‘Yes, she was.’ Miller gave a droll chuckle.
‘But she said she couldn’t remember whether she was still naked when she accompanied you around the house to see if the intruder was still there.’
‘Oh yes, she definitely was. But I got the impression that she didn’t care too much about that sort of thing. Of course it could’ve been the shock of what had just happened to her. She certainly didn’t seem to know what she was doing. But there again, like I said, she was a bit of a flirt.’
‘Didn’t you suggest that she put some clothes on?’ asked Dave.
Miller smiled wryly. ‘No, of course not.’
‘When you and she entered the main bedroom, Sharon said she fainted when she saw her husband’s dead body.’
‘I don’t remember that,’ said Miller. ‘But I was a bit taken aback by seeing Cliff lying dead there, so my concentration was sort of on him. Like I said, I called 999 and when your blokes turned up they sent for an ambulance. Just following regulations, I suppose. But the paramedics said he was dead and they left it to the law.’
I decided that that was all we were going to get from Miller for the time being. Dave got him to sign his statement and we left.
‘D’you want to have another word with Sharon Gregory, guv?’ asked Dave. ‘As we’re right next door.’
‘No, we’ll leave it until tomorrow, Dave. That should give her time to get over her trauma. And it’ll be interesting to hear if she still tells the same story. Or if she’s prepared to tell us who the intruder really was, because I’m sure she knew him, despite what she said.’
I was not looking forward to Monday morning for a very good reason. And at one minute past ten precisely, my fears were confirmed when Colin Wilberforce appeared in my office.
‘What is it, Colin?’
‘The commander would like to see you, sir.’
‘Thank you, Colin.’ With a sigh, I walked the few yards down the corridor to the office of the chief.
‘Ah, Mr Brock.’ The commander looked up as though surprised to see me. I don’t know why the hell he couldn’t have just walked into my office like any other senior detective. Actually I did know: the commander wasn’t a real detective. He’d been arbitrarily selected for what we in the trade call a ‘sideways promotion’, a term that Dave dismissed as an oxymoron. After a lifetime antagonizing football crowds and introducing new traffic schemes that merely resulted in further delaying drivers who were just trying to get to work, the commander had been sent to the CID. Obviously some dim-witted visionary in what is now called ‘human resources’ thought that we would benefit from his expertise. The outcome was that he thought he really was a detective. The truth, however, was that he’d been put out to grass until the age limit sent him home. For good. But none of that stopped him from viewing all our activities with deep-rooted mistrust. And constantly questioning what we were doing.
‘You wanted me, sir?’
‘Bring me up to date on this suspicious death you’re dealing with, Mr Brock.’ It was one of the commander’s little foibles that he would never call a murder a murder in case it turned out to be manslaughter or suicide. Or even an accidental death. He hated to be wrong.
‘It’s a murder, sir,’ I said firmly. ‘No doubt about it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite definitely, sir.’
‘Tell me about it.’ The commander sighed and leaned back in his chair, peering at me over his half-moon spectacles. I doubted they contained corrective lenses; I think he wore them for effect.
I spent the next few minutes describing the case with which we were dealing, larding it with technical CID phrases that I knew he wouldn’t understand but wouldn’t query for fear of being found uninformed about the basics of crime investigation. I decided, however, not to voice my suspicions about Sharon Gregory’s account of what had taken place at West Drayton. That would set him off theorizing. Anyway, we needed more than we had before we could justify arresting her.
‘Yes, very well, Mr Brock. Keep me informed.’ The commander carefully selected a file from his overflowing in-tray, placed it in the centre of his desk and caressed it lovingly.
I returned to my office. Dave was waiting for me.
‘Give me an excuse to get out of here, Dave,’ I said. ‘Any excuse.’
‘Will Heathrow Airport do, guv? I tracked down the security officer for the airline Sharon Gregory works for. His name’s Ted Richie and he’s an ex-CID officer. He was a DCI when he packed the Job in.’
‘Thank God for that. When can he see us?’
‘As soon as we can get there,’ said Dave, ‘but Charlie Flynn’s got some information for you that you ought to know about before we go.’
DS Flynn came into my office carrying a sheaf of papers. ‘I’ve checked through Mrs Gregory’s credit card accounts, guv’nor. Turns out she was one careless lady.’
‘How so, Charlie?’
‘The window sash weight and the clothes line that Linda Mitchell found in the garage were purchased by Sharon Gregory from a DIY supermarket in Ruislip a week ago and paid for on her credit card.’ Flynn thumbed through his pile of paper. ‘
She also paid an online pharmacy company in Mexico six weeks ago, but there’s no indication what she bought.’
‘Well, well,’ I said. ‘Why would an air hostess buy a window sash weight and a clothes line? The house is double glazed and there’s a washer-drier in the utility room.’ But the answer was obvious: she, or her accomplice, had murdered Clifford Gregory. And the pharmacy company in Mexico could have been the source of the Rohypnol that Dr Mortlock had found in Clifford Gregory’s hair. But we had yet to discover a motive.
‘That’s not all, guv. The insurance policy that Sharon Gregory said her husband had taken out for twenty thousand pounds no longer exists. It was cashed in when the Gregorys bought their house five years ago. However …’ Flynn paused, presumably for dramatic effect. ‘Sharon took out a policy on her husband for one hundred thousand pounds.’
‘When?’ I asked.
‘Would you believe one month ago, guv?’ Flynn looked up and grinned.
‘Thanks, Charlie. That’s very helpful.’
‘Miss Ebdon said it looked like a put-up job, guv,’ said Dave, when Flynn had departed. ‘So, what’s next?’
‘What’s next, Dave, is that we go straight to West Drayton and nick Mrs Gregory on suspicion of murdering her husband. Not that she’s going anywhere until Wednesday. At least that’s when she said she was next on duty.’
It was only fifteen miles from ESB, as we had come to call the Empress State Building, to West Drayton. Even so, it took us nearly an hour, despite what Dave called ‘positive motoring’, an expertise that added another meaning to the term ‘hard drive’. But when we arrived at the Gregorys’ house, we found that our journey had been in vain.
The blue and white tapes were still in place across the front of the house, and a constable from the local station stood guard at the door.
‘Are you looking for Mrs Gregory, sir?’ asked the PC.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘She left about ten minutes ago in her Mini Cooper, sir,’ said the PC.
‘Did she say where she was going? Shopping, perhaps?’
‘She said she was going on duty. She was in her airline uniform and was carrying a small suitcase.’
‘I don’t suppose you happened to take a note of the index mark of the Mini Cooper, did you?’ I asked hopefully.
The PC opened his pocketbook and displayed a page. ‘There you are, sir,’ he said triumphantly.
‘Well done,’ I said. ‘You should go far in the Job.’ I’d often had that said to me when I was a young PC, but it hadn’t seemed to have the desired effect. Quite a few of my contemporaries at the Metropolitan Police training school at Hendon were now chief superintendents and one was a commander, but they were in the Uniform Branch and I wondered, yet again, whether becoming a CID officer had been a wise choice. And another thing I’d learned is that a compliment of that sort only holds good until your next mistake.
I made a note of the details of Sharon’s Mini Cooper, and Dave and I went inside and made for the sitting room. It was still in its state of chaos and Sharon had obviously made no attempt to clear up the mess. We had a final look round, but found nothing more to interest us.
‘It looks as though she’s changed her duties, Dave. She wasn’t supposed to have been flying again until Wednesday,’ I said. ‘At least, that’s what she told us, wasn’t it?’
‘To coin an apt phrase, guv,’ said Dave, ‘it looks as though the bird has flown.’
‘Put details of her Mini Cooper on the Police National Computer, Dave. If it’s found we might have some idea where she’s gone. Ask for a check to be made on car parks, particularly at airports and railway stations. Then arrange for an all-ports warning. There’s just a chance that she might’ve taken off for foreign parts,’ I said. ‘As a passenger.’
‘I’ve already put her car’s details on the PNC, sir. I made a note of the index mark when I saw it in the garage.’
‘You could’ve told me that when I was talking to that PC, Dave.’
‘What, and ruin his moment of glory, guv?’ said Dave, and then offered me one of his pearls of wisdom. ‘Miss Ebdon said she was a lying bitch. We should’ve nicked her when we had the chance.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘From reading her statement, it strikes me that her story doesn’t hang together. But more importantly there are Doc Mortlock’s findings that Cliff Gregory had been fed Rohypnol. Added to all of that, there’s Charlie Flynn’s information about her buying a sash weight and a clothes line in Ruislip. To say nothing of the new insurance policy for a hundred grand.’
‘You have to remember that she was in shock when Miss Ebdon and I spoke to her, Dave,’ I said, ‘even though she seemed composed enough. And we didn’t know that she’d bought the sash weight and the clothes line until recently. And we certainly don’t know that she bought the Rohypnol.’
‘What’s next, then?’ asked Dave, having made his point.
‘There’s nothing else we can do here,’ I said. ‘We’ll see what Richie at the airport has to say about her.’
SIX
We found Ted Richie’s office tucked away in Terminal Two at Heathrow Airport. There were maps and duty rosters adorning the walls, and his desk was cluttered with paperwork and a model of a passenger aircraft, several more of which were beside a kettle and a cafetière on a side table.
‘DCI Harry Brock, from the Metropolitan Murder Investigation Team, Mr Richie, and this is DS Dave Poole.’
‘Yeah, we spoke on the phone, Dave. The name’s Ted, by the way. Come in, gents, and tell me how I can help you.’ Richie was a large man with a bald pate, a North Country accent, a substantial moustache and a red face that seemed to indicate a fondness for alcohol. But he had been a CID officer and it’s a hard life; at least that’s always the excuse. ‘I’m ex-Job myself. Did thirty years up North flogging my guts out getting a string of petty villains banged up, took my money and ran. Best decision I ever made. Take a pew, gents.’
I explained briefly about the murder of Sharon Gregory’s husband.
‘Yeah, I heard about that,’ said Richie. ‘Airline grapevine. People here seem to fall over themselves to tell me the latest scuttlebutt. Never happened in the Job. Mind you, I did have one or two good snouts.’
‘Dave and I have just been to Sharon Gregory’s house at West Drayton, Ted,’ I continued, ‘but I’m told that she left there less than an hour ago. According to the PC on duty at the house, Sharon was in uniform and she told him that she was going to work. But when we interviewed her on the night of the murder she told us that she wasn’t rostered to fly until this coming Wednesday.’
Richie turned to one of the crew duty rotas on his wall and studied it for a moment or two. ‘That’s what it says here, Harry. According to the latest roster I’ve got, Sharon Gregory’s not flying until Wednesday, LHR to MIA.’ He paused and then explained. ‘Heathrow to Miami International.’
‘That’s exactly what she told us,’ I said. ‘But is there anyone here who could tell us if that’s been changed?’
‘I could try the duty room. I don’t know the girl personally, I’m afraid,’ said Richie. ‘We’ve got a lot of cabin crew working out of here, but to tell you the truth I don’t have much to do with them. My job’s more one of dealing with security on the ground: baggage that’s been nicked, light-fingered baggage handlers, that sort of thing. Anything that’s up in the air, to coin a phrase, is dealt with by the aircraft captain. That’s the law; just like the captain of a ship. But occasionally I get involved, for theft on an aircraft in flight or thieving by the crew.’
‘Must keep you busy, Ted,’ said Dave, but I thought I detected a hint of sarcasm.
‘You can say that again,’ said Richie, ‘and they always want me to use my contacts to short-circuit the system if someone’s snuffed it in flight. You’d be surprised how many people die in transit; must be something to do with the cabin pressure. The powers-that-be want me to get in touch with the coroner’s officer and smoot
h the wheels.’ He sat down behind his desk. ‘I had a word around and if it’s of any interest, airport chit-chat suggests Sharon Gregory’s got a bit of a reputation for sleeping around, usually in Miami. It pays to keep your ear to the ground in this job. But like I said, I don’t know her personally.’
‘We’ve heard that much, Ted. The people we’ve spoken to so far have suggested that she might not be averse to having a fling.’
‘Anyway, to answer your question about her duties,’ said Richie, ‘first of all, I’ll have a look through my memos to check that they haven’t been changed. That’s if they bothered to tell me. These girls sometimes do a mutual swap and the duty room doesn’t always let me know.’
Having spent a few moments ploughing through the untidy pile of papers on his desk, he looked up. ‘They haven’t advised me of any change, Harry, not that that means a damned thing. As far as I know, what she told you still stands. The last I heard was that she should be flying out at fourteen thirty-three Zulu time this coming Wednesday bound for Miami. D’you want me to make a few enquiries?’
‘Yes, please, Ted. And perhaps you could get someone to check if her car is in the staff car park.’ Dave gave him the details of Sharon Gregory’s Mini Cooper.
Ted Richie made a couple of calls, one to a member of his staff and another to the duty room. Twenty minutes later he got the first reply. ‘The duty room guy said she hasn’t shown up there, Harry, which is where she has to report for duty, and her schedule remains the same: fourteen thirty-three Zulu departure on Wednesday. What’s more, no one in the duty room has seen her at any time today.’
The second reply came five minutes later.
‘My guy says that her car’s not where she usually parks it, Harry,’ said Richie, switching off his mobile and tossing it on to the desk.
