by Graham Ison
‘You must have seen his shops,’ said Tessa. ‘They’re called Hayden Charity. He made a joke of it and said that Hayden stands for “Help All Your Deprived Emaciated Neighbours’’.’ She smiled and her hands fluttered aimlessly in front of her. ‘He’s very clever with words, you know.’
‘Apparently.’ Fox had yet to meet Hayden, but he had already concluded that the man was a bit of a prat.
*
Harry Dawes was a worried man. The visit of Tommy Fox had frightened the life out of him. The discovery of the body in his lock-up at Lambeth had been unfortunate, to say the least, and the resulting interest that the police were now taking in him — or that he thought they were taking — threatened severely to hamper his operations. But it hadn’t stopped him altogether. Convinced that his telephone was being tapped, he was obliged, as Fox had predicted, to use a public telephone to get in touch with his associates, or even to meet them face-to-face. And that was very risky.
Indeed, Fox had not been idle in the matter of the robberies, despite having a murder to investigate, and he had instructed DI Evans to gather as much information as possible about any other warehouse-breakings around the country where a similar method appeared to have been employed.
‘There have been seventeen altogether, sir,’ said Evans, glancing at a list. ‘Over a period of about eight or nine months. And not only warehouses. There’ve been shop-breakings as well. Rammings, some of them.’
‘Saucy bastards,’ said Fox. ‘What sort of gear have they been having off, Denzil?’
‘Clothing mainly, sir. Men’s casual wear for the most part. Jeans, sweaters, and trainers. Oh, and tents and camping gear. And quite a lot of women’s dresses, too. The other thing that seems to have attracted their attention is electrical stuff. Personal computers, computer games, video-recorders.’
Fox nodded. It was a familiar pattern. ‘Where have they been operating?’ he asked.
‘The furthest north they’ve been is Birmingham, guv. They hit a couple of places in Chelmsford and Oxford, too. But mainly in London. Well, greater London. Kingston and Croydon seem very popular.’
‘Not with me they’re not.’ Fox shook his head glumly and lit a cigarette. ‘They’re taking the piss, Denzil,’ he said, ‘and I’m not having it.’
‘No, sir,’ said Evans, not quite sure how they were going to stop it.
‘What’s Henry Findlater up to?’ Fox asked suddenly.
‘He’s still keeping obo on Harry Dawes, sir.’ Evans sounded surprised that Fox appeared not to know.
‘Good. Tell him to come in and see me.’
‘D’you mean you want the obo taken off then, sir?’
‘Of course not, Denzil, but he’s got a team out there hasn’t he?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well then. Tell him to leave it in place and come in for a chat. It’s time we had a conference.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Evans. But it wasn’t very good at all. Evans didn’t much care for Fox’s conferences.
*
‘I want every one of Dawes’s associates identified,’ said Fox, ‘and I shall use every man we have, if necessary.’ He looked round at the assembled members of the Flying Squad and beamed confidently. ‘Henry.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘How many visitors has Dawes had since we set up the observation?’
‘About four, sir,’ said Findlater. ‘All identified. But Dawes has been out several times to the public phone box in the Upper Richmond Road. But of course we don’t know who he contacted.’
‘No, no you wouldn’t, Henry.’ Fox nodded wisely. ‘See you, did he?’
‘No, sir, of course not.’ Findlater looked hurt.
‘Right then, from now on, make sure he knows you’re there. It’s no good him making calls from public call boxes because we don’t know who he’s phoning. So we’ll let his merry little band of villains go to him.’
‘But surely, sir, that’ll stop him altogether, won’t it? He’ll just suspend operations.’
‘Exactly, Henry. Keep that going for a week and then we’ll withdraw the obo for three or four days.’ Fox looked round the room with a triumphant gleam in his eye. ‘Then we’ll put it back on again … discreetly.’
*
John Wheeler, the photographer who had accompanied Sheila Thompson to the Crawleys’ dinner party, looked closely at Fox’s face as though assessing its photogenic qualities. ‘Yes, I was there.’ He grinned. ‘This is just like a detective story on television,’ he said. ‘You know the sort of thing, where someone gets murdered at a country house party and the inspector gets everyone together in the drawing room afterwards and tells them who committed it.’
‘Yes,’ said Fox, a sour expression on his face. ‘There are a lot of plays like that on television. Nevertheless, I am interviewing everyone who attended the Crawleys’ dinner party, and I’ll be nicking whoever it’s down to without gathering you all together at the end.’
Wheeler grinned again and turned off the floodlights in his studio. ‘Have a seat,’ he said. ‘What can I tell you?’
‘How well did you know Dawn Mitchell, Mr Wheeler?’
‘That was the first time I’d met her. Sheila and I go back a long way and we’ve been to the Crawleys’ for dinner lots of times. But it seems that we’re the only regulars.’
‘D’you mean that you didn’t know anyone else who was there? Apart from the Crawleys, of course?’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Wheeler pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offered them to Fox and Gilroy. ‘There was a boring couple called …’ He paused to accept a light from Fox and rubbed his hand round his chin. ‘Can’t remember. Kept banging on about his bloody charity work most of the time.’
‘Hayden?’
‘That’s him. Christ, what a bore. And his wife. Boy, you should have seen her. Talk about mutton dressed as lamb. Wanted me to take a studio portrait of her.’
‘And did you?’ asked Fox.
Wheeler stood up and walked across to a wooden cabinet with banks of shallow drawers beneath it. ‘There,’ he said, returning with a proof copy of a photograph. ‘That’s what you call a work of art.’
Fox examined the picture. Wheeler had actually managed to make Tessa Hayden look attractive and about fifteen years younger. ‘You cheated,’ he said.
‘Too bloody right. I do have a reputation to think about, you know.’
‘What about the others?’
‘What others?’ Wheeler threw the photograph onto a stool and looked back at Fox.
‘The others at the party.’
‘There was a couple called Jessop. Never found out much about them, except they kept telling everyone that they were going to spend the winter in California. Seemed to be rolling in money. Then there was the bloke that Dawn Mitchell brought with her. Well, I thought that he’d brought her, but I learned afterwards that it was the first time they’d met. He was called Jason. Something to do with oil, so he said. He behaved as though he was about twenty, but I reckon he was nearer forty. Bloody idiot. It wras obvious that he fancied Dawn rotten. Tessa had invited him to balance the table.’
‘Balance the table?’
Wheeler laughed. ‘Yeah, balance the numbers. I didn’t mean he was a juggler.’
‘No,’ said Fox drily. ‘I didn’t imagine you did. But who told you that he hadn’t met Dawn before? Did he?’
‘No, Dawn did.’
‘That evening?’
‘No. We met afterwards.’
‘How did that come about?’
‘Tessa told everyone that I was a photographer. So suddenly they all discover that they’ve always wanted their portraits taken.’ Wheeler shrugged. ‘I suppose you get that sort of thing in your trade?’ he said.
‘Not really,’ said Fox. ‘Generally speaking I find that people are not that keen to have their photographs taken by the police.’
‘That’s not what I —’ Wheeler broke off, laughing. ‘All right,’ he said, �
��but you know what I mean.’
‘How did you come to meet Dawn Mitchell afterwards?’ Fox, irritated at having his time wasted in banal chat, persisted.
‘She rang me, here at the studio.’
‘Did you give her your phone number?’
‘Didn’t have to. It’s in the book, Yellow Pages.’
‘What did she want?’
‘She was desperate to become a fashion model, and she wanted some photographs taken. Free.’
‘And did you oblige?’
‘Yes and no.’ Wheeler sounded hesitant.
‘What’s that mean?’ asked Fox.
‘She said she couldn’t afford my fees, but she was prepared to pay in other ways.’
‘And did she? Pay in another way.’
For the first time since the interview had started, Wheeler looked embarrassed. ‘Yes, but —’
‘But what?’
‘I wouldn’t like Sheila to get to know. We’ve got a sort of permanent arrangement, if you know what I mean.’
‘How long did this go on? Between you and Dawn?’
‘I suppose it lasted for about six weeks.’
‘And finished when?’ Fox glanced sideways at Gilroy and saw that he was taking notes.
‘Towards the end of September, I think it must have been.’
‘Why?’
Wheeler shrugged. ‘Just one of those things, I suppose,’ he said.
Fox stood up. ‘Do you happen to have any of the photographs you took of Dawn Mitchell, Mr Wheeler?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Wheeler without hesitation. ‘I gave them all to her.’
‘You don’t keep any proof copies then?’
‘Not of private work I do for friends, no.’ Wheeler nodded at the print of Mrs Hayden. ‘Apart from that one,’ he said. ‘And I was rather pleased with that.’
‘I see,’ said Fox. ‘Be a bit difficult for the Inland Revenue to tax some of your payments, I suppose.’
Out in the street, Fox paused with his hand on the door-handle of his car. ‘He wasn’t the photographer who took the prints we found in her flat, was he, Jack?’
‘No, sir.’
‘How very strange,’ said Fox. ‘I wonder why.’
*
By the afternoon of the second day, Harry Dawes had become aware that the police surveillance on him had been intensified. In fact, he could hardly have avoided noticing. Every time he left his house, two or three men or women, albeit dressed in un-policemanlike garb, had followed him. They walked down the road, seemingly very interested in everything but Harry Dawes. They hung around near the telephone box from which he made his calls, and they walked back to Oxford Road again when he walked back. And whenever Dawes looked out of his sitting-room window, he noticed a dilapidated van with blanked out windows parked in the street or, worse still, a man or a woman just loitering. It got to the point where Dawes even looked with suspicion upon those going about their lawful occasions, like the postman, the milkman and several innocent members of what are called the utilities. And the man who came to read Dawes’s meter was subjected to a particularly rigorous grilling.
But Harry Dawes had been jousting with the forces of law and order for too long to be that easily intimidated. The last phone call he had made, knowingly under the watchful eyes of Findlater’s team, had been to a trusted lieutenant called Wilkins. Kevin Wilkins had been told to issue instructions to all interested parties that Dawes had suspended operations for the duration of the present emergency.
On the morning of the third day, Harry Dawes, a lifetime of villainous experience behind him, determined to go on the offensive. Putting on his hat and coat, he left the house, pointedly pausing at his gate to look up and down the road. Raising his hat to a road-sweeper whom he firmly believed to be one of Fox’s men, he bade him a cheery ‘Good Morning’ and walked down to Wandsworth Police Station where he made a formal complaint of harassment.
NINE
IT WAS A BLACK, FOUR-wheel-drive, cross-country truck with a canvas canopy, a sturdy framework of steel bars protecting its radiator and a towing hook at the back. It would have been more suited to grinding its way over some rough terrain in Yorkshire or Cornwall, or traversing miles of featureless desert in the course of some Cape-to-Cairo expedition. But as it happened, this particular vehicle wras moving slowly along a row of shops in Kingston upon Thames. Fourteen miles from London. Or thereabouts.
Just as slowly, the vehicle turned on to the pavement. But then it accelerated, straight through the front of a shop that specialised in hi-fi, television and video. In the quiet of a Tuesday morning — it was 3 a.m. exactly — the noise was terrifying as glass shattered, metal grilles were torn away and glass doors were spread across the interior of the shop together with the cheaper products that had been on display in the windows. But the trio of villains in the truck didn’t panic. They knew how much time they had.
Rapidly, two of them leaped from the vehicle, seized four television sets, two video-recorders and a couple of personal computers, and handed them quickly to the third man who had remained in the back of the truck. Calmly, they secured the tailgate and almost sauntered round to climb into the cab. Reversing out of the smashed shop, the wheels of their truck crunching over broken glass, they left a pavement littered with debris and a burglar alarm disturbing the night, and drove off at high speed. A nearby occupant of a flat nearly killed himself leaning out of an upstairs window in an attempt to get the number of the truck. Not that it would have helped if he had. The truck had been stolen.
Three minutes later, at Kingston Police Station, the night duty station officer looked at the message that told him that a unit had been assigned to deal with a ram-raid. Then he stood up, stretched and yawned. In all fairness, there was little else he could do.
*
At about the same time, in Catford, a shop that supplied expensive computer games to children whose parents couldn’t say no, was broken into. As the staff were all at home, safely tucked up in their beds, there was no one to hinder the thieves. So, just for the hell of it, one of them stabbed an inflatable Father Christmas to death.
‘Well?’ Fox glowered at Denzil Evans as though he was personally responsible for these latest outrages.
‘The truck used in the Kingston raid was found abandoned at Esher, sir, which is about —’
‘I know where Esher is,’ snapped Fox. ‘There’s a racecourse there. Any witnesses?’
‘No, sir. Well, none that’s any good.’
‘What have the local CID come up with? Anything? Or is it all too much for them?’
‘They’ve had forensics down at the scene and —’
‘I take it you mean a scientific examination has been conducted,’ said Fox acidly, continuing his battle against the misuse of the word ‘forensic’.
‘Yes, sir. But they haven’t come up with anything.’
‘Didn’t expect them to, did you, Denzil?’ Fox turned to the window and glared at the morning rush hour. ‘And the Catford job?’
‘They had about two grand’s-worth away, guv.’
‘It’s the same team, Denzil,’ said Fox.
‘Well, sir —’
‘Of course it is, Denzil. Got to be.’ Fox turned away from the window and threw the two message flimsies towards his desk. They floated aimlessly past it and into the waste-paper basket. ‘I’ll not have these bloody people thumbing their noses at me. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Evans. ‘By the way, sir, there was a third that we’ve just heard about.’
‘What?’ barked Fox.
‘A lorry-load of tinned peaches was hijacked near Farnham, sir.’
‘Get out,’ said Fox.
*
Commander Thomas, the Director of the Complaints Investigation Bureau of the Metropolitan Police, always made a point of seeing complaints made against senior CID officers. And, for the second time in a month, a complaint against Detective Chief Superintendent Fox of the Flying Squad had dropped on t
o Thomas’s desk in his office high in Tintagel House on Albert Embankment.
Thomas touched the switch on his intercom and spoke to his secretary. ‘Get me Commander Willow at One Area Headquarters, please, Sonia,’ he said.
Seconds later, Thomas’s phone buzzed and he picked up the receiver. ‘Raymond?’
‘Yes,’ said Commander Willow.
‘Thomas here.’
‘Thomas who?’ Willow always played this little game with the man who had got the job that Willow had always wanted.
‘John Thomas.’
‘Oh, hallo, John.’
‘You’re dealing with a complaint against Fox of the Squad, I believe,’ said Thomas airily, well knowing that to be the case.
‘Yes.’ Willow spoke curtly. He did not wish to be reminded of it. In fact, he thought that the black woman’s threat to complain about him had come to fruition.
‘Well there’s another one.’
‘Is there indeed! Well give it to someone else.’
‘I’ve spoken to the Deputy Commissioner, Raymond,’ said Thomas, ‘and he agrees that it would be better if you ran the two together. Makes sense, don’t you think?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Willow, ‘but if that’s what the Deputy wants then so be it.’
‘Jolly good. I’ll put the papers in the despatch,’ said Thomas with an evil smile. He didn’t like Willow. Dipping the receiver rest, he tapped out the Deputy Commissioner’s direct-line number. ‘I’ve just received another complaint against Detective Chief Superintendent Fox, sir,’ he said smoothly. ‘I thought it would be a good idea to give it to Ray Willow, as he’s already dealing with one against Fox.’
‘Good idea,’ said the Deputy Commissioner and replaced the receiver, somewhat mystified as to why Thomas had bothered to tell him.
*
To say that Sheila Thompson was slim was to be polite. She was, in fact, painfully thin. And small-breasted. With short black hair and an elvan face. ‘John told me that you’d be coming to see me,’ she said.
‘Then you’ll know what it’s about,’ said Fox. ‘How well did you know Dawn Mitchell?’
‘Do take a seat.’ Sheila Thompson moved, with feline grace, across to an armchair and sat down. ‘I knew her hardly at all,’ she said.
