‘He’s dead, Mr Deacon. He committed suicide in Brighton just over a week ago.’
‘As a matter of interest, Chief Inspector, why are you telling me all this?’ Deacon was unmoved by the news of his great uncle’s death, but as he’d never met him that was understandable.
‘We have reason to believe that he was defrauded of some ten thousand pounds.’
‘Where on earth did he get that much money from?’ Deacon’s face registered a shock similar to that displayed by Stella Kumar when we’d told her the amount of money her father had accumulated.
‘I’ve no idea,’ I said, declining to pass on what James Milner had told me about Rivers’s black market activities in Germany at the end of the Second World War. ‘The only reason I’m here is to find out whether you knew anything about this fraud.’
And to see if you were responsible for my three murders.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything about it.’ Deacon shook his head. ‘Mind you, I might’ve got to know him if I’d found out he was worth that much. Might even have gone to the funeral. But I suppose that’s taken place.’
‘Yesterday, as a matter of fact, sir,’ said Dave.
‘Oh well, we wouldn’t’ve made it anyway. Trish and I only got back last night.’
‘Got back?’ I queried.
But it was Trish Hardy who answered. ‘We spent almost the whole of July in Calgary, Alberta. It’s my home town and I thought I’d better show Deacon off to my folks before I agreed to marry him.’ She laughed. ‘He decided to have a go at the rodeo, that’s why he’s aching all over,’ she volunteered. ‘I told him not to, but he’s bloody-minded when the mood takes him, but not as bloody-minded as the mustang was.’ She seemed devoid of any sympathy for her fiancé’s escapades, and laughed.
‘Sorry I couldn’t help you with this fraud business,’ said Deacon, as he limped to the door to show us out. ‘But as I said, I never met the old boy.’
And that crossed George Deacon off our list of suspects. Subject, of course, to the usual checks.
I
t turned out that Joe Daly’s flying visit earlier that afternoon wasn’t the end of the Lucien Carter affair, although in another sense it was. The question of Carter and where he’d put the money ended abruptly with a telephone call from the London FBI agent just after Dave and I returned from interviewing George Deacon. And after I’d given Colin Wilberforce the task of confirming George Deacon’s story that he and Tricia Hardy had spent the whole of the last month in Calgary.
‘Harry, can you come across to the embassy? I’ve got some bad news, although you might not think it’s bad.’
‘What sort of bad news, Joe?’
‘I’ll tell you when you get here, but I’ve just opened a bottle of Jim Beam that might help to ease the pain and suffering.’
I didn’t like the sound of that, and Dave and I hastened to Grosvenor Square without further delay.
We were joined in Joe Daly’s office by Darlene. It seemed that it was Daly’s close of play relaxation when he and his secretary enjoyed a few drinks.
Joe poured substantial measures of his Kentucky whiskey into chunky tumblers and handed them round. ‘You guys want ice?’ he asked.
‘Certainly not, Joe,’ said Dave. ‘We’re British.’
‘So, what’s this bad news?’ I asked, having taken a sip of Daly’s whiskey.
‘Lucien Carter’s dead.’
‘
Dead?
What happened?’
‘First reports say that he was murdered by another inmate, but enquiries are ongoing.’
‘I’ll bet they are,’ said Dave quietly.
‘How the hell did he get topped in Rikers?’ I asked. ‘I thought that prison was as tight as a drum.’
‘Sure it is,’ said Daly, ‘but these things happen. If some inmate decides to take another one out, he’ll do it somehow. According to the information that O’Grady of our New York office was given, Carter was in the exercise yard when another remand prisoner stabbed him.’
‘Do we know who this other guy was?’
‘Not yet. I’m waiting on more details, but I’m wondering if whoever killed Carter had gotten paid to take him out.’
‘Yes, so am I,’ I said thoughtfully as I considered this latest twist in my murder enquiry. ‘Are your guys doing the investigation?’
‘No, Harry. Investigations like that are done by the New York Police Department. They won the fight with the Bureau and the Department of Corrections. Believe me, if you think you’ve got turf wars here, you ain’t seen nothing.’
The following day, I sat in my office mulling over what we knew so far. It wasn’t much beyond that the fact that I had three unsolved murders on my hands and no idea how to solve them.
Dave and I went out for lunch at our favourite Italian restaurant, and I spent the afternoon trawling through the mass of paperwork that had been mounting up since a week ago last Friday.
I made a decision. ‘We need to talk, Dave,’ I shouted through my open door. ‘Grab some coffee and come in.’
‘On its way, guv.’ Five minutes later Dave appeared with two cups of coffee, and kicked the door shut with his foot.
‘Take a pew, Dave. I’ve been thinking that we’ll have to go public with these damned murders because we don’t seem to be getting anywhere.’
‘True, sir,’ said Dave. ‘But that won’t help with Carter’s murder in Rikers.’
‘We’ve got enough of our own murders without worrying about that,’ I said. ‘Anyway, that’s down to the NYPD.’
‘But surely there’s a connection with our murders,’ said Dave.
‘I shouldn’t think there’s any doubt about it, but getting to the bottom of that particular topping rests with our American friends. It’s nothing to do with us.’
‘But we could take a trip over there, guv,’ suggested Dave. ‘We might find out something that they’ve missed.’
I gave the impression of giving the matter some thought. ‘Good idea, Dave. I could go over there on my own and leave you here to oversee the UK end of things. I doubt that the commander would sanction both of us going.’
‘Thank you,
sir
,’ said Dave.
I rang the head of Press Bureau at the Yard.
‘Bob, I want to release details of my three murders to the media.’
‘I fielded a few enquiries about the camper van fire just after it happened, Harry, but interest seems to have died down. These things don’t stay in the news longer than about twenty-four hours at best. All that was released at the outset was that there was an unfortunate fire at Richmond in which two people lost their lives. And the media seems to think that the Adekunle murder was a random burglary gone wrong. D’you want to tell the world about all three of them now?’
‘I think it’s the only way we’re going to get any help, Bob,’ I said, and went on to give him chapter and verse about the deaths of Eberhardt, Schmidt and Adekunle, but without any mention of the share scams that appeared to be the motive for their murders. I didn’t say anything about the death of Lucien Carter in Rikers. I doubted that anyone in the UK would be able to offer any information about that, not that there would be much I could do with it if they did. Except to pass it on to the NYPD.
Then I sat back, metaphorically, and awaited the flood of information that would undoubtedly be forthcoming from concerned and helpful members of the public. If only!
‘D’you think we
will
get anything out of the press release, guv?’
‘I hope so, Dave, but don’t hold your breath.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘It’s damned near half past seven. Go home, and give Madeleine my regards.’
‘She’s on tour in Russia, guv. She’s currently at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg where the Kirov ballet company usually performs. She won’t be back until Sunday morning. Looks like another microwave supper.’
The murderer picked up the newspaper and stared in horror at the front-page article about Eberhardt, Schmidt and Adekunle. He wondered if it had also been on the TV, but as he had no access to a television set, he didn’t know.
He firmly believed that he’d covered his tracks and that the original press stories about the two deaths in the camper van being an unfortunate accident had meant an end to it. But now he saw the frightening announcement that the police were regarding them as murders.
Even more unsettling was that Scotland Yard was now linking those deaths to the murder of Samson Adekunle. He’d been sure that his anonymous and deliberately belated telephone call to the police had given them the impression that it was a random killing resulting from a bungled burglary. Press reports had thought so, too.
His mind went back to the old fool with the dog who’d seen him shooting at a tree in Richmond Park, and wondered if he’d told the police what he’d seen. Not for the first time he cursed himself for his foolishness. After all, he’d had enough practice at the German gun club; he didn’t have to do more in public. That was just bravado accompanied by a firm belief that he wouldn’t be caught.
Fortunately, he hadn’t given the secretary of the gun club in Birmingham his real name, and the ploy of taking a room with Mrs Patel would have made it more difficult for him to be found. However, he was confident that his theft of the firearm from the gun club near Essen would not be discovered by the British police, even though he’d been obliged by the nit-picking Germans to give his real name and produce his passport.
But now it seemed that his initial confidence was unfounded.
He went downstairs and sought out the landlord.
‘I’m leaving,’ he announced.
‘You’ll have to pay to the end of the month,’ said the disgruntled landlord, irritated that he’d now have to find a new tenant.
‘That should cover it,’ said the murderer, and peeled off a couple of twenty-pound notes from a roll he took from his pocket.
‘What d’you want me to do with any mail that arrives for you?’ asked the landlord.
‘There won’t be any,’ said the murderer, and hastening back to his room threw his few possessions into a battered holdall.
His next problem would be finding somewhere to live until he could flee abroad. Preferably back to Germany.
The landlord pondered the sudden departure of his lodger and idly wondered if it had anything to do with the three murders that had been reported in that morning’s newspapers and on the previous evening’s television news. But he didn’t wonder for long. Once his erstwhile tenant had driven off in his Volkswagen Polo, he walked down to the local police station.
I arrived at the office on Friday morning, full of hope that the press release might yield some helpful results. Like hell! Last night’s evening papers and television news bulletins had carried lengthy reports about our triple murder enquiry, and today’s national newspapers published similar items. One enterprising journal had managed to acquire a photograph of Adekunle’s house in Paddington, and also reproduced a picture of a Volkswagen camper van similar to the one in which Eberhardt and Schmidt had been murdered. Another paper had produced a photograph of Guy Wilson’s house in Bendview Road, Richmond, describing it as ‘The house of antiquarian book dealer Guy Wilson, opposite which the brutal slaying had occurred.’ It was a photograph that produced the first complaint arising out of our enquiries.
But there were no telephone calls from people who knew the murderer and were about to tell us where he lived.
‘Good morning, Harry.’ No sooner had I got my first cup of coffee in front of me than Alan Cleaver wandered into my office. I’d already been told by Colin Wilberforce that the commander had taken the day off and that Cleaver was acting in his place.
‘Morning, guv.’ I made to stand up, but Cleaver waved me down, at the same time sinking into my armchair.
‘We’ve had an official complaint from a bloke called Guy Wilson, Harry.’
‘What’s he banging on about? It was him who called the fire brigade to the camper van where we found the bodies of Eberhardt and Schmidt.’
‘Yeah, I know. Well, a photograph of his house appeared in one of this morning’s tabloids together with details of what he did for a living.’
‘Yes, I saw it.’
‘I know it’s nothing to do with us,’ Cleaver continued, ‘but he’s got this bee in his bonnet that police leaked details to the press. Can you spare a few minutes to go down there and disabuse him?’
‘I suppose so, guv.’ I was disinclined to make apologetic overtures to the egotistical Wilson, particularly as I knew the information had not come from us, but Alan Cleaver must’ve had a good reason for asking me.
‘It’ll save time in the long run, Harry. The local CID told me that Wilson claims to have influential friends and is threatening to write to his MP. Frankly, I think it’s all bluster, and anyway I couldn’t give a toss about his grievance. But nipping this thing in the bud would save us having to deal with a parliamentary question if some idiot Member of Parliament did happen to raise it in the House. Or if the said Member wings it across to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.’
I glanced at my watch. ‘I’ll go down there now, guv,’ I said.
‘Thanks, mate,’ said Cleaver. ‘Let me know how you get on. Give me a ring if it’s more convenient for you.’
Oh, what a refreshing change from the commander.
‘And about time.’ Guy Wilson threw open his front door and retreated into the house, leaving Dave to close the door. ‘You’d better come into the study.’
Wilson sat down behind his desk, but didn’t invite us to take a seat. We did anyway.
‘I understand that you have a complaint about press coverage, Mr Wilson,’ I began.
‘Too bloody right I have.’ Wilson snatched at a copy of a tabloid newspaper that was open on his desk. ‘Have a look at that. The offending article is on page three.’
‘I’ve seen it,’ I said.
At that moment a woman whom I presumed to be the Wilsons’ housekeeper entered the study. She was wearing an overall coat and her face wore a bland expression. ‘Do you wanting coffee, Mister Wilson?’ she asked in an accent that seemed to indicate that she originated from an Eastern European country.
‘No,’ snapped Wilson, ‘and close the door. I’m not to be disturbed.’
The woman, her face still expressionless, withdrew silently and shut the door behind her.
‘What exactly is your complaint about, Mr Wilson?’ I asked.