Deadlock

by Graham Ison

  ‘I’m afraid she’s been killed, Mrs Barton.’

  ‘Oh!’ Denise’s mother turned away and stared stoically at the blank television screen. ‘Was it a car accident?’ she asked again, turning to face me once more.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you she was murdered.’ I went on to explain the circumstances surrounding the finding of her body.

  ‘What a wicked, wicked world we live in,’ exclaimed Mark Barton, suddenly sitting down in an armchair.

  ‘What were the circumstances, Chief Inspector?’ asked Patricia Barton. Apparently she had not taken in the details I had given her and her husband moments ago. Nevertheless, as is so often the case, it was the woman who retained her composure.

  ‘Her body was found in Canbury Gardens in Kingston, Mrs Barton. She’d been strangled.’

  ‘Have you caught whoever did this terrible thing?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Kate. ‘We have a number of leads we’re working on – but my chief inspector is certain that we’ll make an arrest shortly,’ she added, nodding in my direction.

  You’re more confident than I am, Kate, I thought.

  ‘Have you told Malcolm yet?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Barton. We left him not an hour ago.’

  ‘Strange he didn’t telephone,’ commented Mark Barton.

  ‘It’s not strange at all,’ said Patricia spiritedly. ‘He never had any time for us. In fact, Mr Brock,’ she continued, glancing at me, ‘he treated us with contempt, just because Mark spent a lifetime as a clerk at a council office – a senior clerk, mind you.’

  ‘What sort of girl was your daughter, Mrs Barton?’ It was clear to me that I was going to get more sense out of Denise’s mother than from her father.

  ‘Very quiet and very studious. She went to university to study computer science. That’s where she met Malcolm. They’ve been going out together for a few years now and they were supposed to be getting married next month, on the twentieth of July actually. They’d arranged their honeymoon in Corsica.’ Finally, the dreadful realization that their daughter was dead hit home, and Patricia Barton dissolved into tears.

  ‘Strange place to go,’ commented Mark Barton, oblivious to his wife’s distress. ‘I don’t know why people want to go abroad. I certainly don’t. I haven’t seen all of England yet.’

  We made the usual offer of the services of a family support officer, which was refused, and left the Bartons to their grief, not much better informed about their daughter’s lifestyle than when we’d arrived.

  ‘There’s one other thing we can do while we’re in this neck of the woods, Kate,’ I said as we left the grieving Bartons. I glanced at my watch. ‘We’ll have a word with Abigail Robinson, Denise Barton’s business partner. It’s not far from Tolworth to Richmond.’

  ‘If she’s at home,’ said Kate. ‘She might’ve gone away for the rest of the weekend.’

  ‘I doubt she’d have gone away if Malcolm Warner has told her of Denise’s murder,’ I said. ‘Anyway, Warner said the weekends are their busiest time, so I imagine she’s still there.’

  ‘D’you think he’ll have bothered to ring her?’ asked Kate. ‘I got the impression he was too worried about returning wedding presents. Apart from anything else, I thought he was a bit of a cold fish.’

  ‘Cold enough to have topped his fiancée, d’you mean, Kate?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s got the bottle to do that, but a guy who has it off with another bird days before getting married ain’t normal in my book. For all we know, Harry, he might be shafting this Abigail bird we’re going to see as well as the Shirley Manners he mentioned as his alibi.’

  ‘We’ll soon find out.’ I rang Abigail Robinson’s mobile and she was at home.

  ‘Yes, I heard. What a terrible shock,’ she said as she admitted us to her flat. ‘Malcolm telephoned me just after you’d left him. He said you’d probably be coming to see me.’ With her long black hair drawn back into a severe ponytail and her heavy horn-rimmed spectacles, she looked every inch the successful, no-nonsense businesswoman.

  Kate and I sat down in Abigail’s comfortable, lived-in sitting room. ‘I understand that you and Denise went for a drink after you’d finished work yesterday evening,’ I said.

  ‘That was the plan, but as we were about to leave the office I got a call from a charity we do business with, asking if we could do a rush order. We’re not in a position to turn down business, and I told Denise to go on and I’d meet her at the wine bar once I’d dealt with our caller.’

  ‘What happened then?’ asked Kate.

  ‘She wasn’t there when I arrived, and I asked one or two people we both knew whether they’d seen her, but they said they hadn’t. Not that that means she hadn’t been in, of course.’

  ‘Do you always go to the same wine bar?’

  ‘Yes, always. It’s the Talavera,’ said Abigail, confirming what Warner had told us. ‘But Denise had been complaining of a headache for some time before we split, and I assumed that she’d perhaps gone home. I rang her mobile but it went straight to voicemail. I knew that she was getting a taxi home that evening, so I waited long enough for her to have got back to Cobham and rang their landline, but there was no reply. I assumed that she’d felt better and she and Malcolm had gone out somewhere. Maybe to their tennis club.’

  ‘Did you follow it up?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I didn’t, although with hindsight I suppose I should’ve done. Not that it would have made any difference. I gather from what Malcolm said that she was murdered sometime last night.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what we believe,’ I said.

  ‘I know this is a delicate question, Miss Robinson,’ said Kate, ‘but is it possible that Denise was seeing someone else?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ said Abigail firmly. ‘She was absolutely besotted with Malcolm.’ She paused, as if wondering whether to offer an opinion. ‘Not that I found him attractive. Too much the pedantic schoolteacher for my liking. Mind you, she knew one or two men at the wine bar on what you might call a nodding acquaintance, as did I. They’re a friendly bunch that go in there.’

  ‘Was there anyone in particular that Denise knew?’ I asked.

  Abigail shook her head. ‘No one that I can think of.’

  ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Robinson,’ I said, as Kate and I rose to leave. ‘We may need to see you again. On the other hand, if you think of anything that might assist us, perhaps you’d give me a ring.’ I handed her one of my cards.

  ‘I think we’ve done enough, Kate,’ I said as we got into the car. It had been a long and largely fruitless day, and we’d both had enough. I asked Kate to drop me off at my flat, and suggested she take the police car home with her to New Malden.

  During the journey I phoned Lydia and was delighted, and a little surprised, to find that she was still at my flat.

  The moment I closed my front door, Lydia called out from the kitchen, ‘There’s a whisky on the table by your chair, Harry. Is that all right or would you prefer something else?’

  ‘Perfect. Why don’t you come and sit down for ten minutes?’

  ‘If you don’t mind dinner being a bit later,’ she said, appearing in the doorway of the sitting room with a glass of red wine in her hand. A lock of hair had fallen on to her forehead, and she was perspiring.

  ‘That’s all right. Had you not been here I’d probably have called in at the pub and had a pie and a pint, which is what I had for lunch.’

  ‘You shouldn’t neglect yourself.’ Lydia’s tone was disapproving. ‘Not doing the job you’re doing.’

  Hello, I thought. I’m being taken over, and oddly enough I don’t mind in the least.

  We chatted for ten minutes or so, although Lydia did most of the talking, mainly about the commonplace occurrences in her life which, for me, was a form of relaxation.

  The comfortable way in which she had settled in reminded me of my mother’s oft-uttered warning when I was approaching manhood. She told me that I should be wary of women who
were keen to get their feet under my table. At that tender age I didn’t have a table, and I wasn’t sure what she’d meant. In later years I decided it was the sort of mother’s cautionary tale that had been handed down from generation to generation without ever being queried. But now I thought I was old enough to know what I was doing, and to have a caring woman put her feet under my table was rather appealing. And there was no doubt that Lydia was caring.

  Looking across at her, very much at home in one of my armchairs, I was still amazed that I’d been attracted to someone who was so different from Gail Sutton, my former girlfriend. Gail was a tall, svelte, blonde actress, whereas Lydia was an attractively buxom woman of thirty-eight with short brown hair. Her late husband, who had been ‘something in the City’ and a keen yachtsman, had died in a car crash some eighteen months ago, and his huge fortune had been left to Lydia. She was, therefore, very wealthy, and certainly had nothing to gain from a relationship with me. For my part, I had nothing much to offer her except perhaps companionship, unreliable working hours and frequent cancellations of social engagements at the very last minute. But she’d already discovered that, and the unreliable course of our short acquaintanceship had confirmed it. I couldn’t work out what there was about me that she found attractive.

  ‘We’d better eat now, Harry.’ She stood up. ‘The first course is already on the table.’

  I stood up too, and held her by the shoulders. ‘It’s wonderful having you here, Lydia.’ I pulled her close to me, kissed her and ran a finger down her spine.

  ‘Not so fast, lover.’ Laughing, she eased herself away from my embrace. ‘Dinner first.’

  She had prepared bruschetta and tomatoes to start, followed by duck cooked to a perfect pink, with new potatoes and peas. After raspberries and cream she produced a whole Camembert that was genuinely French, rather than an English imitation. And she didn’t utter a word about cholesterol. This sumptuous meal was accompanied by a Beaujolais Juliénas that certainly hadn’t come from my meagre stock.

  ‘You’re really spoiling me, Lydia.’ It seemed an inadequate way to thank her for yet another superb meal. But she had managed to produce it with little apparent effort. ‘Brandy?’

  ‘Mm, yes please.’ She paused. ‘And then …?’

  On Monday morning I settled in my office with a cup of coffee, intent on going over the evidence we’d amassed so far. Oddly enough, our revered commander had not bothered me of late. Either he had been warned off by the deputy assistant commissioner, of whom he was terrified, or he’d decided that a killer who’d probably been responsible for three murders was beyond even his self-perceived detective powers.

  But I’d been reading statements no longer than twenty minutes when the aforementioned DAC, a cup of coffee in his hand, appeared in my office.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ I said, struggling to my feet.

  ‘Morning, Harry.’ With a nonchalant wave of a hand, the DAC signalled me to sit down again, before sitting down himself. ‘I was on my way to the Yard and thought I’d drop in to see how you were getting on.’

  As succinctly as possible, I brought him up to speed. He gave me one or two pointers – always worth listening to – on how to proceed from now on, and once more offered me any additional manpower and resources I needed.

  ‘Are you happy dealing with it, Harry? If you want someone with a bit more clout in day-to-day charge just say the word, but I wouldn’t want you to think I hadn’t got faith in you to finish the job.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, but I’m coping all right. I’ve got a good team, and between us we’ll crack this one.’ Putting one hand beneath the desk, I crossed my fingers.

  ‘I looked into the incident room just now and cadged a cup of coffee. They seem to be right on top of the job in there. That sergeant of yours, Wilberforce, gave me a thumbnail sketch of the whole inquiry. Very impressive.’ The DAC leaned forward and put his cup and saucer on the desk. ‘While I’m on the subject of your team, Harry, I’m afraid you’re going to lose Len Driscoll next Monday. But I’ll keep him here if you feel you need the continuity, although that would mean holding back his promotion to DCI and his transfer to division.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to do that, guv’nor,’ I said, pleased to hear the DAC still referring to it as ‘division’ rather than the cumbersome ‘operational command unit’, another creation of the boy superintendents at Scotland Yard, known to us at the sharp end as ‘the funny names and total confusion squad’. ‘Who am I getting in his place?’

  ‘You’ve got a choice, Harry, and you know one of them. Jane Mansfield is a DI on the assessment team, but the other possibility is Brad Naylor of the Flying Squad who fancies a change from the muck and bullets of dealing with ordinary villains, as he puts it.’

  ‘I know Naylor, too, sir. We got involved in a job some years ago. The murder of Spotter Gould.’

  ‘It’s for you to choose, Harry. They’re both good detectives, but as you’ve got a woman DI already …’

  ‘It wouldn’t worry me to have two women DIs, guv’nor, but there’s some sort of personality clash between Kate Ebdon and Jane Mansfield. I don’t know what it is, but I’d guess it’s because Ebdon is a brash Australian, not afraid to speak her mind, whereas Mansfield tends to be a little more sophisticated in her approach. But she’s no shrinking violet, and I don’t doubt she’s tough enough to do the job.’

  ‘Fair enough, Harry, but we can do without catfights. I’ll send Brad Naylor to you today and he can spend a few days shadowing Len Driscoll before he takes over his slot.’ The DAC stood up. ‘And now, I’ve just about got time to put the commander in the picture about the transfers.’

  ‘The commander’s not here at the moment, sir.’ I glanced at my watch: it was just nine o’clock.

  ‘Where is he? Not off sick, is he? Dental appointment, perhaps?’

  ‘He doesn’t normally come in until ten o’clock, sir.’

  ‘Oh, really? I’ll have to speak to him at some other time, then.’ Naturally enough the DAC didn’t criticize the commander directly, but his expression indicated quite clearly that he wasn’t happy about what he probably saw as the commander’s cavalier approach to his duties. ‘And don’t forget, Harry. Anything you need, just give me a bell.’

  I had things to do and didn’t need to leave the office until later in the day. Consequently I waited for the commander to arrive, which he did on the stroke of ten.

  I tapped lightly on the great man’s office door, and entered.

  ‘Ah, Mr Brock. Was there something you wanted to ask me?’ he enquired airily, as if he were the fount of all CID knowledge.

  ‘No, sir, but I thought you’d like to know that the DAC was asking for you. I think he wanted a word.’

  ‘D’you mean he telephoned you?’ suggested the commander, in a voice that made it clear that he couldn’t understand a DAC speaking to a mere DCI. With feigned nonchalance, he reached across the desk for one of his beloved files.

  ‘Oh, he didn’t phone, sir. He was here in person.’ I relished making that statement with what the law calls malice aforethought. ‘At a quarter past eight.’

  ‘He was here?’ The commander stood up suddenly, as if he’d just received an electric shock from the seat of his chair.

  ‘Yes, sir. He decided to call in and inspect the incident room, and have a general look around. He wanted to see for himself how my triple murder inquiry was progressing. He stopped for a cup of coffee and a chinwag before going on to the Yard.’

  ‘Did he appear, er, satisfied, Mr Brock?’ enquired the boss carelessly, but I could sense that he was worried sick.

  ‘Always difficult to tell with the DAC, sir,’ I said. ‘But I must say he didn’t seem too happy,’ I added, determined to put the boot in.

  ‘I’d better call him, then.’ The commander paused, his hand on the telephone. ‘No, on second thoughts, I’ll go across to the Yard and speak to him in person. There might be a confidential matter of some urgency he wants to discuss.�
��

  ‘Very likely, sir.’

  The commander almost pushed me over in his hurry to get out of the office.

  Detective Inspector Brad Naylor, just as snappily dressed as the last time we met, arrived at midday. ‘I’m supposed to report to the commander, guv’nor,’ he said as we shook hands, ‘but he’s not in his office.’

  ‘I’ve just sent out a search party, Brad,’ I said. ‘He disappeared in the general direction of Commissioner’s Office seeking the DAC at a quarter past ten this morning, since when we’ve seen no sign of him. It falls to me, therefore, to welcome you to HMCC West.’

  ‘Thank you, kind sir,’ said Naylor, and half bowed. ‘I haven’t seen Len Driscoll anywhere so far. Is he about?’

  ‘There’s a block of flats at Canbury Gardens opposite the murder scene. He’s probably still doing house-to-house enquiries there, Brad. The DAC suggested you shadow him for a while, but do you need to?’

  ‘Not really. I spent the last hour getting briefed by the incident room skipper.’

  ‘Colin Wilberforce.’

  ‘That’s the bloke. He filled me in with all I need to know. He’s on top of his job, that one. I’m surprised he hasn’t gone for promotion.’

  ‘Just be thankful he hasn’t,’ I said. ‘I reckon the place would fall apart if he went.’

  ‘So, we’ve got a triple murder to deal with. It looks as though I’ve jumped straight in at the deep end.’

  TWELVE

  ‘There’s an outstanding action that you said you wanted to do yourself, sir,’ said Colin Wilberforce.

  ‘Remind me, Colin.’

  ‘Malcolm Warner’s alibi for the night that his fiancée was murdered, sir.’

  ‘Thanks, Colin. I’ll get on to it straight away.’

  Warner had claimed, albeit reluctantly, that he’d spent the night with a Mrs Shirley Manners and, with even greater reluctance, had given me her address and mobile phone number. I didn’t think he’d lied; it was, after all, too easy to check, but unless every minor point is covered in the report that goes to the Crown Prosecution Service, some functionary low down in the pecking order will make a song and dance about it.