by Graham Ison
‘Did she say who this man was?’
‘Yes. Bob somebody. I can’t remember now.’
‘Darwin?’
‘That’s it — Bob Darwin. Anyway she’d decided to move out — leave him. But there was one problem — she hadn’t got anywhere to go. I took pity on her and said that she could have a room in my place down at Richmond. She jumped at it. Was back to this Darwin bloke the same afternoon and packed her things, and in she came.’
‘And did she continue to work for you?’
‘Yes, of course, but not exclusively, if that’s what you mean. There was nothing written into the tenancy. She just carried on as before — getting work where she could. None of us in this business can afford to pay a model a wage — even if you’re one of the top names, and I’m not. There’d be no point. You can’t use one model for everything. No, the accommodation was a separate arrangement. But it’s very small. We tended to live on top of each other. She used to roam about with nothing on, quite unabashed. To be perfectly honest, I never thought I’d get into that sort of thing —’ She broke off, for the first time looking a little embarrassed. ‘And, frankly, I don’t think she did, either — it just happened. She’d had this terrible trauma, with her little boy — you know about that, I suppose?’ Tipper nodded. ‘And she was clearly still cut up about it, although it was getting on for a year. I think she missed having a family — you know, husband and a kiddy to care for. I suppose it was the older woman thing — a mother figure. Sometimes she would sit down and pour her heart out. Poor little bitch. Apparently her husband was an absolute swine. And then she jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. This Bob Darwin character was no better — well that’s men all over, isn’t it? The upshot was that we both suddenly realised — at about the same time really — that we’d stumbled on a relationship, her and me, that was uncomplicated by men. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we were in love. What’s that, after all? But we found that we were compatible. As for sex — well, when you’ve been married … I don’t have to say any more, not to blokes like you, do I?’
She stood up and walked over to the table where the whisky was and poured herself another half-tumbler. ‘Are you sure you won’t have one?’ she asked.
‘Quite sure,’ said Tipper.
‘But it was too good to last, our little love-nest. She was always restless — always seeking the unattainable, I think. Anyway she came in one day — right out of the blue — and said that she’d met this wonderful bloke, and that was it.’
‘And she went?’
‘Oh yes. She went.’
‘Who was he — any idea?’
‘A civil servant, apparently. Some wonderful, steady bloke, just what she’d always been looking for. And this was it. Love and happiness at last. I don’t think it was, though. Well I know it wasn’t, because I saw her from time to time afterwards. It was the usual story. The great dream, and then it started to fragment, the way it always does — and I should know. She tried to pretend it was all hunky-dory, but you can tell. I know jolly well it wasn’t. There are giveaway signs.’
‘What was the name of this bloke she went to live with — or did she marry him?’
‘He was called John something — I’m afraid I can’t help you more than that. But no — she didn’t marry him. She said it was on trial to start with. She’d had one marriage that had gone horribly wrong, and she was going to make sure before she committed herself again. As I say, she still worked for me, whenever I’d got anything. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you about her. But it doesn’t surprise me that she was murdered. She was a nice girl, but overwhelming, if you know what I mean. She would really go overboard — and men don’t like that — it frightens the hell out of them.’
‘And you last saw her eight weeks ago?’
‘Eight or nine, yes. She popped in, looking for work, as usual.’
‘And had you got any for her?’
‘Not any more, love, no. It was funny really, after all she had had to say about porn. But she offered to do some calendar work — you know, the risqué stuff?’ She raised an eyebrow. The two policemen nodded. They knew what she meant. ‘But I couldn’t help her. I don’t do that sort of thing. But she’d found out that it paid better — a hell of a lot better.’ She caught Markham’s cynical look. ‘I don’t mix business with pleasure,’ she said and laughed.
‘He was a civil servant, you say — this bloke she went to live with?’
‘So she said.’
Just as they had reached a ‘J’ that could have been the ‘J’ in the diary, they were frustrated again. Of course you didn’t have to be a professional to take photographs of a girl. ‘Have you any idea where he lived, this civil servant?’
‘No, I’m sorry — no idea. Civil servants tend to keep their addresses secret, if they’re in this area; they’re usually up to something naughty. The girls round here could tell some tales that would make your hair stand on end.’ She reflected on that for a moment. ‘Probably not you two,’ she said. ‘Coppers know all about that sort of thing, don’t they?’
‘I wonder if we could bother you to provide us with a set of what we call elimination fingerprints, Mrs Godley. It’s a system whereby we try to eradicate all the innocent prints from the ones we’ve got, so that, hopefully, we finish up with the murderer.’
‘Of course. I’ve done it before, actually.’ The word sounded upper class. ‘But I’ve got another session in about five minutes time. Could we make it around six-thirty? I might even let you buy me a drink afterwards.’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll get Detective Sergeant Markham here to pick you up in a car and run you round to West End Central. It’ll not take too long. All right, Charlie?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘No, not you — him,’ said Tipper. ‘He’s called Charlie, too.’
‘Well there’s a thing,’ said Charley Godley.
Markham looked at this curiously attractive lesbian and wondered if she too was still ambidextrous.
Chapter Five
The great detective, working alone, and possessed of some sixth sense which enables him to identify the author of a crime, without recourse to the evidence, is a creation of the fiction writer. There is no place for such an individual in the incident room which is the centre of any investigation into a major crime.
The setting up of an incident room is a matter which needs great attention. The experienced senior officer will select very carefully the sergeant he puts in charge of it, because it is upon the skill of that individual that the investigation succeeds or founders. The Incident Room Sergeant is a combination of many things. He will be a seasoned investigator who has played a part in many serious crime enquiries. And he will be a proven administrator, capable of producing order out of chaos, and supporting the detectives in the field. He will know the right people to contact when he needs something in a hurry. He will charm stationery out of reluctant storekeepers, and have telephone lines installed from an exchange with no spare lines. He will persuade officers much senior to him to part with additional detectives which they not only cannot spare but didn’t even know they had.
One of the members of the team is a statement-reader. His task is to read every statement which has been taken, always on the date it is taken, and mark up aspects which need to be further investigated. The senior officer in charge will do the same, and will often mark up things which the statement-reader has missed or which, for him, have no apparent significance. It is true that these days the computer will play a big part in assisting a complicated enquiry, but it will never be a substitute for the human element.
When a further enquiry is identified in this way it is entered in the action book, and given a number. The sergeant in charge of the incident room then allocates it to a detective to pursue. The result, often in the form of another statement, will be analysed, and may cause further ‘actions’ to be initiated. It is all very tedious and mundane, and has none of the excitement that televisi
on writers would have you believe is the daily round of the detective.
One such action, allocated to a junior detective constable on the Lambert job, was a thorough examination of Mrs Lambert’s diary and address book. Everybody has one or the other — or both. And everybody is prone to jot down telephone numbers with a brief reference, often just a Christian name. And so it was with Penelope Lambert. Each of the telephone numbers in her diary was passed to British Telecom, and the subscriber traced. Each one has to be checked in this way because policemen have found, over the years, that the human being is a devious creature. The telephone number with the name of a man against it in a man’s diary will be found to be that of the girl-friend that he doesn’t want his wife to know about; or a work colleague’s name will have a bookmaker’s telephone number alongside it, and so on.
Most of the telephone numbers in Mrs Lambert’s book turned out to be innocuous: the hairdresser, her doctor, the garage — she was always having trouble with her car, and various other people and firms who have to be rung up from time to time. But there were one or two that were not immediately significant.
‘Put an action in the book to trace this civil servant John, will you, Charlie,’ said Tipper.
‘Done it, guv, for what good it will do,’ said Markham. ‘Mustn’t be downhearted.’
‘Well, blimey, guv’nor. I read somewhere that there are a million civil servants in this country; on a conservative estimate, I reckon two-thirds of them must be men. And how many d’you think are called John?’
‘A lot,’ said Tipper, unhelpfully.
*
It was easier than it seemed. ‘That address book,’ said the Incident Room Sergeant. ‘Who was doing that?’
‘Fred Logan, skip,’ said someone.
‘Fetch him here,’ said the Sergeant.
‘Any civil servants in that book of hers, Fred?’ asked the Sergeant.
‘Yes,’ said Logan. ‘At least — could be.’
‘Spit it out, lad.’
‘There’s a number here, with an extension, that goes out to the Department of Trade. It’s got “John” written beside it.’
‘And?’
‘That’s all.’
‘Well who’s John?’
‘Dunno, skip.’
‘Well bloody well find out — that’s what you’re paid for.’
A chastened Detective Constable Logan made enquiries of the security officer at the Department of Trade and Industry, and was told that no one called ‘John’ was on that extension. However, said the security officer, there had been up until six months ago. A principal called John Wallace who lived in Surbiton.
*
‘Charley Godley, guv.’
‘What about her?’ Tipper was slumped in his office chair, balancing a pencil between his two forefingers, and trying to line it up with the bottom of the group photograph of his advanced CID course at Hendon which hung on the opposite wall.
‘I’m not happy about her, sir.’
‘Refuse your advances, did she?’
‘Didn’t make any, thank you very much,’ said Markham with a sniff.
‘Well then?’
‘Lesbians can be very spiteful when someone upsets them.’
‘Oh do get on, Charlie. What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying,’ said Markham patiently, ‘that it wouldn’t surprise me to find that she murdered Penny Lambert — out of sheer bloody jealousy.’
‘Oh!’ said Tipper, still playing with his pencil, ‘And what, apart from illogical intuition, leads you to that astounding proposition?’
‘She was away the same time as Penelope was.’
Tipper slowly sat up. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I checked with the keyholders’ register at West End Central, and there was a cross-reference to the unattended premises cards. Her studio at Wardour Court was unattended for the week.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing, sir. That’s as far as I’ve got.’
Tipper stood up and turned to the window. He parted the slats and gazed down into Broadway. It was a habit of his; he wasn’t looking for anything. ‘There’s a berk down there just parked his van across the exit to the Yard car-park,’ he said. ‘I just hope for his sake that the first car up isn’t a Flying Squad one — his feet won’t touch.’ He turned back. ‘Well I think, in that case, that a few discreet enquiries won’t come amiss, Charlie.’
‘It’s in hand, guv. I’ve put it out as an action.’
‘Well get it back again. I don’t want some idiot DC trying to tie Charley Godley up in knots, because he won’t succeed — she’s far too astute.’ He sat down again and swivelled his chair gently from side to side. ‘Come to think of it, Charlie, her answers were much too pat. She wasn’t at all surprised when we told her that Penny’d been murdered — in fact, she said as much. I would have thought that she would have shown some emotion. After all, she did have a — what was that expression of hers?’
‘A relationship,’ said Markham, flipping through the pages of his pocket-book.
‘Yes …’ Tipper spoke thoughtfully. ‘And it lasted a year — that’s what she claimed, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. “About a year, I suppose,” is what she said.’ Again Markham quoted from his notes.
‘Interesting. Here we have a woman who has a lesbian affair with the victim which lasts a year, and then …’ He broke off. ‘How long was it since she had last seen her, Charlie?’
‘Eight or nine weeks, sir.’
‘Yeah! Then the Old Bill turns up and tells her that her ex-girlfriend has been murdered, and she doesn’t even ask what happened. She wasn’t interested in how, or where; she didn’t ask a single question about the circumstances. Now what d’you make of that?’
‘Some people are very private,’ said Markham.
‘Philosopher now, are you?’ Tipper said, an edge of sarcasm in his voice.
‘No, it’s just that she might have waited before crying her bloody eyes out. You know what some people are like.’
‘Yes, you could be right, and she’s the sort of woman who may never display any emotion. P’raps that’s why her old man left her,’ he added as an aside. ‘But there’s a limit. If someone tells you, out of the blue, that someone you’ve lived with for a year has been murdered, and that’s the first you know of it, it’s very difficult to hide some surprise, isn’t it?’
‘You may have put your finger on it, guv.’ Tipper raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Well,’ continued Markham, ‘you said, “if that’s the first you know of it”. Maybe it wasn’t.’ The Sergeant paused again.
‘There again,’ said Tipper, ‘Perhaps lesbians are different.’
Markham smirked. ‘I don’t think there’s much argument about that,’ he said.
‘I know a bit more about queers,’ said Tipper, as if Markham hadn’t spoken. ‘But I have to admit that lesbians are a bit of a mystery to me.’ He stood up. ‘Take that one on yourself, Charlie. See what you can find out, and then perhaps we’ll go and have another little chat with Muzz Charley Godley.’
*
Detective Sergeant Markham found out nothing beyond confirming, from what the police euphemistically call local enquiries, that Charley Godley’s Wardour Court studio had been locked up, and apparently unattended during the week that culminated with the death of Penelope Lambert. Other people in the immediate vicinity knew her, obviously, but had no idea where she had been during those seven days. One conscientious beat-duty PC recalled having checked the premises on a couple of nights, and that without incident. A similar enquiry of Richmond police station produced the same story. Charley Godley’s house in Richmond had been registered as unattended, but no one locally knew where she had gone. A neighbour had stood in as keyholder, but understood that Mrs Godley, whom she knew only slightly, was away — touring, she thought. It left but one alternative.
‘We’ll have to go and see her again, Charlie,’ said Tipper.
They paused at the
bottom of the stairs leading to Charley’s first-floor studio to allow an attractive girl to come down. She smiled sweetly at Markham and thanked Tipper as she went out to the street.
‘D’you think I should have warned that young lady that she was in moral danger?’ asked Markham.
‘So might you be,’ said Tipper acidly.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Charley Godley, emerging from an inner doorway and wiping her hands on a towel. ‘Sit down. I’m just making a cup of tea, if you’re interested?’
‘Thanks, yes,’ said Tipper.
After a few minutes the photographer reappeared with a tray on which were three large chipped mugs. ‘Help yourself to sugar,’ she said, and sat down facing them. ‘Well?’ She gazed levelly at the two policemen.
Tipper decided that there was no point in prevaricating with this woman, ‘You were away from here, and indeed from your address in Richmond, between the sixteenth and the twenty-fifth of August.’
Charley Godley said nothing, but stood up and walked to a table on the other side of the room. It was covered with papers and obviously was used as a desk. She thumbed through a large scribbling diary that lay in the centre of the jumble until she found the right entry. With her back to the detectives she said: ‘Correct. Actually it was the fifteenth as well — the Friday.’ She closed the book with a slam and turned to face them. ‘Why?’
‘Where did you go, Mrs Godley?’
‘Well, if it’s any of your business, loves, France.’
Tipper was not pleased with her reply. She was either supremely confident — or innocent.
‘Whereabouts in France?’
‘The south. Cannes — well, just outside. Why are you asking these questions?’
‘Did you go alone, or was there someone with you, Mrs Godley?’
‘No I was not alone — I was with someone.’
‘Who?’
‘I’m not answering any more of your questions until you tell me why you want to know these things.’ She was quite cool, unruffled by the Chief Inspector’s probing.
