The Home Secretary Will See You Now (Gaffney and Tipper Mysteries Book 3)

by Graham Ison

  At last the Home Secretary looked at Gaffney, staring him in the face. ‘Of course, of course,’ he murmured. Even in his anguish he could not forget that he was the political head of the police force of which Gaffney was a member. ‘You should go far in your chosen profession, Mr Gaffney. You are a brilliant detective.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Which is more than I can say of my career; I only asked the Commissioner to have Special Branch investigate the murder because I didn’t think they’d solve it. Just shows how little I know of your abilities.

  Shouldn’t have judged you all by Lisle, I suppose.’ Suddenly he looked younger, years younger, as if now not only free of the guilt of his crime, but also of all the burdens of the office which he knew instinctively, from that moment, were no longer his. The unfinished minutes would now be completed by another. The pending decisions would be taken by someone else. In a strange paradox, his arrest marked his freedom. All that remained was a prison — and he was more than familiar with prisons — where he could sit and read, and be free of all the passions, the ambitions, the cut-and-thrust of politics, the backbiting, and the worry of re-election in a seat that had become marginal since the boundary changes. No more money-worries, no more concern about the social niceties, the protocol. No more need for leadership; no more aspirations for leadership. He was abdicating it all.

  Then the terror of it struck him: incarceration, for the rest of his life probably. The disgrace, the sagely shaking heads and, above all, the deprivation of liberty.

  He appeared not to have heard Gaffney’s caution, despite having acknowledged it; either that or he chose to ignore it. ‘She was impossible,’ he said. ‘I didn’t suspect for a long time. Perhaps I did and couldn’t bring myself to face it. I know she was an actress, but I never imagined that she’d become involved with a man like Masters, not a criminal. When I found out, I still couldn’t believe it, but I confronted her. She just laughed at me and said, “So what?” I asked her why; what could he possibly give her that I couldn’t. D’you know what she said? Sex! — that’s what she said. She said that Masters was alive and vibrant and treated her like a whore, and that was what she wanted. Not to be on a pedestal with everyone bowing and scraping just because she was the Home Secretary’s wife. I idolised that woman; gave her the best of everything. There was nothing she wanted for.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘I have a friend — his name’s Earl Barclay — who owns a villa in the South of France, at Le Trayas.’ Gaffney nodded. ‘We’ve often stayed there over the years — ’ Lavery broke off, interrupting himself. ‘He’s not an English earl, this Barclay.

  It’s his name; he’s actually an American, an American financier.’ He seemed to think it important that he should clarify that. ‘We were staying down there He broke off again. ‘As a matter of fact, Elizabeth had gone down ahead of me. I’d not been long in office, and something had arisen that meant I couldn’t go until a day or two later. I flew down to Nice and motored along the coast from there. It’s about thirty miles, I suppose. Very pleasant in the summer.’

  ‘Yes, it must be.’

  ‘What?’ Lavery looked startled, as if surprised to find that Gaffney was still there.

  ‘I said it must be. Pleasant in the summer.’

  Lavery nodded slowly. ‘Yes, oh yes. We were driving along the front at Le Trayas, almost there, as a matter of fact, when I saw her coming out of a bar with a man. I recognised him instantly as Masters.’ He shook his head, still unable to believe what he had seen that day.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I got to the villa and asked Earl where she was, as if I hadn’t seen her. He told me that she had left the previous day. Some story about an urgent filming assignment that they had phoned about. She’d just packed up and left, so Earl said.’

  ‘But she knew you were coming down?’

  ‘Of course, but she didn’t know when. I think I told her it would be a few days later than it actually was, but whatever it was that had held me up in London didn’t come to fruition, so I left. It must have been pure chance that I saw her. I didn’t see her again in Le Trayas, even though I kept my eyes open.’

  ‘Did you tackle her about it, the next time you saw her?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Lavery nodded seriously. ‘She said that it was a case of mistaken identity, that it wasn’t her at all. She said that she’d already left by then.’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  ‘Yes, I did, but only because I wanted to. I tried to reason with myself, believing that my wife would never do a thing like that.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Can you

  imagine? The wife of the Home Secretary consorting with a known criminal. It would have put paid to my parliamentary career; my legal one too.’

  Gaffney refrained from making the obvious retort: that that had happened anyway. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘At first I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t very well get Five to look into it. The result would have been the same … if they’d confirmed it of course. So I got hold of a fellow who’d done occasional inquiry work for our chambers in the past, swore him to secrecy, and paid him well.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’m afraid he came back with just what I didn’t want to hear.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He’d found out that she’d spent a week in Spain with the man Masters, at his villa. She was supposed to be there — in Spain I mean — but advising on a film. At least that’s what she told me.’ He paused. ‘And that’s what I told you … ’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘When she got back I confronted her again.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Gaffney. ‘If you wish to.’ He was conscious of not really being entitled to ask questions.

  ‘She was so truculent about it. Asked what I proposed to do. Funny that: what did I propose to do? I told her that it was what she proposed to do that was important. Then I told her that she would stop seeing him.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘She laughed and said “Make me”. So I tried to reason with her; make her see sense. I explained what it would do to my career if it got out — and it would have done — but she said they wouldn’t dare publish it. I told her that Home Secretaries weren’t immune from the attentions of the Press, and she said that that was quite right, but that Masters was. It seems that he had threatened to kill any journalist who mentioned him or her in his newspaper. Then she said she wanted a divorce. I asked her if she intended to marry Masters … ’

  ‘What did she say?’

  Lavery looked up, an expression on his face that was

  half smile, half sneer. ‘She said no: she wanted to marry someone else.’

  ‘Did she say who?’

  Lavery shook his head. ‘No, she wouldn’t tell me. Frankly, I didn’t believe that. I think she did want to marry Masters, and was just piling on the agony.’

  Gaffney wasn’t so sure of that, remembering his conversation with Lord Slade, and also what Desmond Marshall had said about Liz Lavery being unhappy that her husband wasn’t to be made Attorney and, therefore, a knight. ‘What did you say? When she asked for a divorce.’

  ‘I refused, naturally. Then she flounced out and said that she would see him as often as she liked.’

  Gaffney glanced across at Tipper and waited until he had lifted the point of his pen from his pocket book. ‘What happened on the night of the murder?’ he asked.

  It was as if Lavery hadn’t heard that, intended going at his own pace. ‘I couldn’t have that, you see. Not a second divorce, not in those circumstances. I’m afraid that there’s a tendency these days for the public to say that a man who makes bad decisions in his private life is just as likely to make them in his official one.’ Gaffney felt that the public was probably right. ‘I rang her from the club that night, as I told you. She said that she’d had enough, that she was going and wouldn’t be coming back, and that I could do what I liked. I knew then that I had to see her, talk her out of it. You were qui
te right, Mr Gaffney, I left by the back door.’ He smiled ruefully.

  ‘I know,’ said Gaffney. ‘You walked out of the back door of the Chesterfield, into South Molton Lane and caught a cab to Cutler’s Mews. It’s a miracle you weren’t recognised.’

  ‘I turned up the collar of my coat, and I stole a hat from the hatstand.’ He smiled at that. ‘I suppose you’ll want to take that theft into consideration?’

  ‘Why go to all that trouble?’ Gaffney thought he knew the answer. The answer was that Lavery had returned home with the specific intention of murdering his wife, hence the elaborate plan to evade his protection officer and at the same time give himself a first-class alibi.

  ‘I didn’t really want to take John Selway with me. I think he would have sensed that things weren’t all that they ought to be between Elizabeth and me. It’s very difficult, and at times very embarrassing, having your every footstep dogged by a bodyguard.’

  ‘Yes, it must be.’

  ‘Anyhow, I went home — ’ He broke off as a thought came to him. ‘D’you mean that the cabbie remembered me?’

  Gaffney shook his head. ‘Not you personally, no, but we did trace a cab-driver who remembered taking someone from the junction of South Molton Lane and Davies Street to Cutler’s Mews that night. Couldn’t identify you positively; just said that it could have been you.’

  ‘Mmm!’ Lavery paused again. ‘Anyway, I went home and she was still there. I tried reasoning with her, but to no avail. She wouldn’t listen, and I grabbed hold of her shoulders. I don’t know what she thought I was going to do, but she started struggling quite violently.’ He paused reflectively and took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know what happened then, but the next thing I remember was that she was lying on the floor, dead. I panicked, I’m afraid, and then realised that if I went back to the club, through the back door, I might just get away with it.’

  Gaffney smiled to himself. Knowing juries, he thought, you might just get away with it yet.

  ‘Not very gallant, I’m afraid,’ said Lavery. He looked round his office, knowing that he was seeing it all for the last time. ‘I wonder if I might have a moment or two to myself, Mr Gaffney?’

  Gaffney watched Tipper close his pocket book and put it and the statements into his brief-case before standing up. Then he looked back at Lavery. ‘I’m afraid that is out of the question, sir,’ he said. ‘You see, you are now in my custody.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘What?’ There was outrage in Tommy Fox’s voice.

  ‘I think nolle prosequi is the Latin term,’ said Gaffney mildly. ‘What it means in short is that the Director of Public Prosecutions, on the instructions of the Attorney-General, is not going to prosecute your friend Masters, in exchange for which the latter will keep his mouth shut about the goings-on in Spain, particularly in relation to the late Elizabeth Lavery’s infidelity and the interest the KGB took therein.’

  ‘It’s bloody diabolical,’ said Fox.

  Gaffney laughed. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting all worked up for. After all, Tommy, you thought it was a good idea that he should be used to trap Farrell, and you did suggest that he be allowed to turn Queen’s Evidence. And when you think about it, thanks to him, there’s one KGB agent less to worry about.’

  ‘What about Farrell, then?’ growled Fox.

  ‘You’re not going to like this, Tommy, but there’s a chance he won’t be tried either … at least not here.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘For the same reason.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Fox was clearly disgusted.

  ‘But all is not lost,’ said Gaffney. ‘We’ve refused to give up Masters to the Spanish for murder, which means he’ll never be able to use his villa again … unless he wants to get nicked. But as a sop, it has been agreed that Farrell should be extradited to Spain to stand trial there for drug-smuggling. I don’t think we’ll be seeing a lot of him for about the next thirty years.’

  Tommy Fox’s face broke into a grin. ‘I think I shall send him a get-well card,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t know that you’d got a fingerprint off Elizabeth Lavery’s body, John,’ said Commander Frank Hussey. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you for the simple reason that there wasn’t one there, sir,’ said Gaffney.

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