The Taming of Tango Harris

by Graham Ison

  ‘But where am I going to get the men for that, sir?’

  Dorman looked appalled at the prospect of having to assign at least twelve policemen to an apparently endless task.

  ‘My dear Nick,’ said Fox, using Dorman’s Christian name for the first time, ‘there are twenty-eight thousand police officers in the Metropolitan Police. I’m sure you’ll be able to find one or two that aren’t doing anything in particular. Try Community Relations Branch.’

  Chapter Five

  The race had started and the shouts of encouragement were deafening. The group of seven or eight men in the stand nearest the restaurant leaped to their feet as the dog they had backed forged ahead, yards clear of his nearest rival. The men had arrived together, intent on enjoying a good night out. Getting a few down them, was how they had put it. One of them, the owner of the winning greyhound, was obviously the host and the others in the group deferred to him.

  Because of the noise, no one heard the shot.

  But suddenly the dog’s owner clutched at his chest and let out an involuntary gasp, little more than a sigh. At once, the force of the bullet threw him backwards, over the seat, so that he fell awkwardly, spread-eagled with his head hanging down.

  At first none of his companions realized what had happened and, thinking that he had fainted, turned to help him. One of them started to pull him up. Then he saw the blood. ‘Christ!’ he yelled. ‘He’s been bloody shot.’ Relinquishing his hold, he looked round, desperately, as if seeking the attacker.

  A woman pushed officiously through the crowd. ‘I’m a nurse,’ she said and placed her fingertips on the injured man’s throat, searching for a pulse. She shook her head and stood up. ‘He’s dead,’ she said. ‘Someone had better call the police.’

  Police area car call-sign Papa Three was not far away from Catford Greyhound Stadium when it got the call to a shooting. But the crew didn’t rush there, not until

  they were assured that armed back-up was on its way.

  When eventually the two PCs, supported by the crew of the gun car and the whole of the territorial support group, fought their way through the crowd, they found that the stand had been cleared, and was being kept clear, by uniformed security guards under the direction of the stadium’s chief security officer, a retired policeman. Lying now on his back between the seats was the overcoated figure of the dead man. There was a dark pool of blood near the body.

  ‘What have we got, guv?’ asked one of the PCs. ‘Apart from the obvious,’ he added with a nod towards the body.

  ‘There was a race going on,’ said the security officer, ‘when suddenly there were shouts and screams from here. One of my blokes sprinted up to have a look … ’ He gestured at the body. ‘And that’s what he found. Now you know as much as I do.’

  *

  DS Jagger and DC Tanner had done a lot of leg work as part of their particular enquiry into the murder of Gina West.

  John Phillips, the man who had apparently paid five hundred pounds for Gina West’s services, had a credit-card account which was managed by a bank. Because of that the police had deemed it necessary to obtain a warrant signed by a crown court judge before attempting to get details of it. That problem overcome, Jagger had learned that Phillips had held the card for only three weeks and, so far, no charge had been made against it. Phillips, said the bank, had an address in Richmond and that is where the credit card had been sent. The bank asked if there was a problem. Jagger said that there was … but it wasn’t the bank’s problem.

  The property was a Victorian house converted into flats. Disinclined to make a cold call on someone who might be a murderer, Jagger and Tanner first undertook some discreet enquiries. The girl who lived in the flat beneath the one apparently rented by Phillips told them it was occupied by a young man who had moved in only two weeks previously. His name, she said, was Jason Morley and she had never heard of anyone called Phillips.

  Jagger and Tanner decided to telephone Brace to see what should be done next. They thought that it was a bit risky to tackle Morley alone — he might, after all, turn out to be Phillips — but on the other hand they didn’t want to go in heavy handed. Brace was unsympathetic. ‘D’you want me to come down there and hold your hand or something?’ he asked. And then rather spitefully, added, ‘You’re not on television, you know. You’re real policemen. I think.’

  ‘Come in,’ said Jason Morley. ‘Will this take long? I’ve just put a pizza in the microwave.’

  The mention of food reminded the two detectives that it was a long time since they had last eaten. ‘I hope not,’ said Jagger as he and Tanner entered the flat cautiously. ‘We are attempting to trace a Mr John Phillips.’

  Morley took the pizza out of the microwave and carried it through into his tiny living room. Then he turned off the television. ‘Must have been the previous tenant,’ he said. ‘I’ve only been here about two weeks.’

  Jagger nodded at the pizza. ‘Don’t let us stop you,’ he said.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ said Morley. ‘I usually eat in town, but I’ve got a date this evening … here in Richmond.’

  ‘Did you meet the previous tenant at all?’

  ‘No. This place was empty and I dealt with the solicitors. I answered an ad in the evening paper. Lucky to find it really. Moved in within twenty-four hours.’ Morley laughed. ‘Not that I had much to move.’

  Jagger glanced round the room. Piles of books and files covered most of the available surfaces and there were several large cardboard boxes on the floor. There were suits laid over the back of the settee and two or three pictures standing against the wall.

  ‘I know,’ said Morley, following Jagger’s gaze. ‘Bit of a state really, but I just don’t seem to have had the time to get straight.’

  ‘Does the name Phillips mean anything to you at all, Mr Morley?’

  Morley shook his head slowly. ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Was there any correspondence here when you arrived, by any chance?’

  ‘No, nothing. Oh, just a minute though. There was something.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘A letter did arrive. Must have been four or five days ago.’

  ‘For Phillips?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was an unfamiliar name, that’s all I can remember.’

  ‘D’you still have it?’

  Morley stood up and ran his hand round his chin. ‘I don’t know what happened to it,’ he said. ‘I meant to send it back to the post office … or drop it into the solicitor. It was knocking about for a few days and then I forgot all about it.’ He looked vaguely round the untidy room. ‘I suppose I must have thrown it away,’ he added and looked apologetic. ‘Will that get me into trouble?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ said Jagger to whom the finer points of the several Post Office Acts were a complete mystery. ‘It’s just that it might have helped us.’

  ‘What’s this all about, incidentally?’ Morley sat down again and poked at his pizza briefly before abandoning it altogether. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Jagger. ‘We don’t have the time.’ He and Tanner stood up. ‘If anything should come to mind, or you find the letter, I’d be obliged if you let us know.’ He scribbled his telephone number on a slip of paper and laid it on the small table beside the pizza. ‘It is quite important. It’s a murder enquiry.’

  The following day, Jagger and Tanner delved deeper. They tracked down the owner of Morley’s flat, but he said that he had nothing to do with the running of the property. He told the detectives that his solicitors acted as managing agents and took care of lettings, rent collection, and all the other day-to-day problems … among

  which he seemed to include giving the police any assistance which might help them with an investigation into a murder.

  Despite the fact that he was on the point of closing, the solicitor was much more helpful. He knew Mr Phillips — in fact, he had seen him a couple of times — and although he had held the lease of the flat fo
r only a very short time, there were no complaints about him. Phillips had apologized for having to abort the arrangement before he had even moved his things in — a matter of business, he had explained — and happily paid a sum of money in compensation. And in cash.

  After a quick phone call to West End Central police station, Brace had told DS Jagger to show the solicitor a photograph of Billie Crombie and, just for good measure, one of Tango Harris. The solicitor had studied both photographs carefully and had eventually decided that the man he had dealt with was more like Crombie … although he might have been Harris. But, in any event, he had worn spectacles. Neither Crombie nor Harris had ever been known to wear glasses.

  But the solicitor did have a previous address for Mr Phillips.

  And about the time that the chief superintendent in charge of Lewisham Division was telling his commander that he had a murder at Catford Stadium, DS Jagger and DC Tanner arrived back at Brace’s office with that address … and the lease which Mr Phillips had completed in his own hand.

  *

  Fox was in the Old Star opposite St James’s Park tube station when Denzil Evans appeared. ‘I suppose you want a drink, Denzil?’

  ‘Thanks, guv. A Scotch, if I may.’ Evans decided to accept this rare offer from Fox before imparting his news. He knew that once he told Fox there would be no more drinking. That they’d both be off again, racing round the Metropolitan Police District.

  ‘Good health,’ said Fox.

  ‘Cheers, guv,’ said Evans and took a sip of his whisky. ‘By the way, Mr Brace has just been on the phone.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘His lads have tracked down Phillips, the bloke whose voucher was found in Gina West’s briefcase … along with her credit-card machine.’

  ‘Nicked him, has he?’ Fox lit a cigarette and absent-mindedly offered one to Evans.

  ‘I don’t smoke, sir. And no, he hasn’t nicked him. He thought he’d better ask you first.’

  ‘Ask me first? What the hell for?’

  ‘Seems his leg men traced Phillips to a flat in Richmond … but he’d gone. Only been there a few weeks, it seems.’

  ‘Are you going to get to the nub of this, Denzil?’

  ‘Yes, guv. The address that Phillips gave before he moved into Richmond is the same as Tango Harris’s address in Buckhurst Hill.’

  Fox burst out laughing. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘Tango Harris isn’t going to leave a trail that’d take us straight to him.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, sir,’ said Evans. ‘But that’s not all. We’ve just had a message from Lewisham.’

  ‘Anything important?’

  ‘Well, you could say that our workload’s just been cut in half.’

  ‘Could I indeed?’ said Fox. ‘Are you going to stop talking in riddles, Denzil, and tell me this joyful news?’

  ‘Yes, guv. Billie Crombie’s just been shot dead at Catford Dog Stadium.’

  ‘Good gracious me,’ said Fox, and confounded all Evans’s expectations by ordering another round of drinks.

  ‘Very soon, Tommy, every superintendent on every area major investigation pool will be working on some aspect of the Harris versus Crombie war.’ Dick Campbell held the post of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations, a cumbersome title invariably foreshortened to the acronym DACSO. As deputy to the Assistant

  Commissioner, he was the virtual head of London’s CID and, as a former commander of the Anti-Terrorist Branch was, unusually these days, a working detective who had come up the hard way.

  ‘Except that Crombie lost, sir.’

  ‘Only in name,’ said Campbell. ‘Someone will take his place.’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ said Fox.

  ‘It’s time for you to co-ordinate the enquiries, Tommy. I don’t want two toe-rags like Harris and the late Mr Crombie tying up all our resources. Take a hand, Tommy. Get in among them. D’you need more men?’

  ‘Not for the moment, sir. I’ve got the whole of the Flying Squad.’

  ‘I don’t want the whole of the Squad tied up either. What’s your next move?’

  ‘I’m going to have Harris in and give him a talking to, sir.’

  Campbell looked pensive. ‘I doubt that you’ll get any joy there. There’s no evidence … is there?’

  ‘None at all, sir.’

  ‘Well, then … ’

  ‘It’ll make him more cocky if he thinks we’re clutching at straws.’

  ‘Well, aren’t we?’

  *

  What Tommy Fox had not told DACSO was that he already had Tango Harris under observation. Detective Inspector Henry Findlater, sometime head of the surveillance team in Criminal Intelligence Branch, had mounted a twenty-four-hour coverage of Harris’s luxurious home in Buckhurst Hill. Fox knew Harris wouldn’t do anything which would play into the hands of the police — he was too fly for that — but he didn’t want to take a team out to Harris’s house with the intention of arresting him only to find that he was somewhere else.

  But first, Fox had a call to make.

  *

  The incident room at Catford police station appeared to be in a state of chaos, but Detective Superintendent David Blunt, not long promoted from the onerous task of being DCI at Wandsworth, knew what everyone was doing. Or was supposed to be doing. ‘Come to see how we’re getting on, sir?’

  ‘Are you getting on?’ Fox always went to the heart of the matter.

  ‘We’ve got HOLMES in, sir,’ said Blunt.

  ‘Sherlock Holmes?’ Fox knew what Blunt meant, but had an almost pathological dislike of the ever-increasing use of abbreviations that the Metropolitan Police tended to indulge in.

  ‘The Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, sir,’ said Blunt patiently, not sure if Fox was pretending not to know.

  Fox gazed at the bank of computer screens. ‘Has he caught anyone yet?’ he asked and lit a cigarette. He perched on the corner of a desk. ‘Never mind all that electronic gismo,’ he said. ‘What’s the SP?’

  ‘Billie Crombie and about six of his hoods were watching the seven-thirty at Catford. They were standing all round him, but suddenly he fell to the ground, dead. If he’d been in the owners’ box, where he should have been, he’d have been behind glass and that would probably have made him more difficult to hit. But Billie Crombie liked the common touch.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Well, there’s not a great deal more, guv’nor. Pathologist’s report indicates that he was shot with a single round, probably from a high-powered rifle, from as much as six hundred yards away. No one at the stadium saw a thing … and there were thousands there.’

  ‘No,’ said Fox reflectively, ‘they wouldn’t have done. There’s something about greyhound racing that takes the average punter’s mind off trivial things like people getting shot.’

  ‘Even more so when they found out who the victim was,’ said Blunt cynically. ‘One mention of the name Crombie and everyone went shtum. We’ve started house-to-house all round the place, and we’ve checked the buildings from which the shot could have come—’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Fox. ‘Witnesses queuing up.’

  ‘We should be so lucky,’ said Blunt.

  ‘It’s got to be down to Tango Harris, Dave.’

  ‘I know, sir. The problem is proving it.’

  *

  It was a large, expensive house in Hertfordshire on the very fringe of the Metropolitan Police District. Leaving their car in the roadway, DS Jagger and DC Tanner crunched their way up the gravel drive.

  A very superior-looking man answered the door. He was about forty-eight, tall, and casually dressed in cords and a yellow sweatshirt adorned with some meaningless logo on the pocket.

  ‘Mr Martin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re police officers, sir. We were wondering if you could assist us in some enquiries we’re making.’

  For a moment, Martin looked puzzled, but then he opened the door wider. ‘Oh, er, well you�
�d better come in, I suppose,’ he said and led the way into a large sitting room. ‘This is my wife.’ He waved a casual hand at a woman seated in front of a large log fire. She looked very ‘county’ in her red sweater and navy-blue skirt, stockings, and shoes. ‘These are police officers, my dear,’ said Martin.

  Mrs Martin gave Jagger and Tanner a faintly disapproving glance. ‘Oh really?’ she said and carried on watching television.

  ‘This is a rather delicate matter, sir,’ Jagger began. He and Tanner had now done twenty of these enquiries but still enjoyed the reaction. But the pompous Martins looked like being the best so far.

  ‘That’s perfectly all right, Officer,’ said Martin. ‘I have no secrets from my wife.’

  ‘If you’re certain, sir.’

  ‘Absolutely, Officer.’

  Jagger shrugged, took out his pocket book and thumbed through it until he found the entry that referred to Jack Martin. ‘It concerns certain transactions with a company called Mountjoy Services.’ He looked up expectantly. ‘We’re enquiring into the death of a Miss Gina—’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Martin hurriedly. ‘On second thoughts, perhaps you’d better come into my study. Don’t want to interrupt my wife’s viewing, eh?’ He glanced quickly at his wife, apparently absorbed in some programme about wildlife, and almost pushed the two detectives from the room.

  Ten minutes later, Jagger and Tanner were walking down the drive again. Another Mountjoy Services customer had been eliminated from their enquiries. Jack Martin had satisfied them that at the time of Gina West’s murder he had been out of the country on business.

  Out of the country he may have been, but he wasn’t out of the wood.

  ‘What was so delicate about Mountjoy Services, Jack,’ asked Martin’s wife coldly, ‘that you couldn’t discuss it in front of me?’

  ‘Oh, just a trivial business matter, dear.’

  Mrs Martin fixed her husband with a steely gaze. ‘Have you been kerb-crawling again?’ she asked.

  ‘Whatever makes you think that?’ asked Martin.

  ‘Because I’ve been married to you for twenty-two years, Jack Martin,’ said his wife.