Reckless Endangerment (3 page)

‘Was Mrs Gregory attacked, Tom? Physically, I mean.’

‘It would appear not, apart from being tied up,’ said Watson, ‘but she’s still a bit shaken up.’

‘D’you reckon she’s fit to be interviewed?’

‘I think so. She had a couple of brandies to steady her nerves. You’ll find her upstairs in the second bedroom with a woman officer. Incidentally, the whole place has been trashed.’

‘Trashed?’

‘Every room, as far as I could see. The first officers on the scene thought that a rave party had been held here, but then they found the body.’

‘Have you seen Dave Poole, my sergeant, Tom?’

‘He’s in the master bedroom with Doctor Mortlock. And the body.’ Watson paused. ‘That’s a pretty smart skipper you’ve got there, guv. He got to grips with the job the minute he arrived. He certainly knows what he’s doing at a crime scene.’

‘Of course he does; I trained him. As a matter of fact, he’s the best sergeant I’ve ever had working with me,’ I said. ‘And he’s got a degree in English from the University of London.’

‘What’s he doing in the Job, then?’ asked Watson, raising his eyebrows.

‘He told me it’s what he always wanted to do,’ I replied.

‘Must be mad,’ commented Watson, appearing to take the view that anyone who had been to university would be insane not to seek better paid employment in a cushier sort of job.

Dave Poole is of Caribbean origin. His grandfather, a medical doctor, arrived in this country from Jamaica in the 1950s and set up general practice in Bethnal Green. Dave’s father is a chartered accountant, but Dave, describing the pursuit of a professional career as a tedious occupation, joined the Metropolitan Police. He often claimed, to the discomfort of those who worried about diversity, that it made him the black sheep of the family. And just to pile it on, he frequently referred to himself as a colour-sergeant when talking to the more pompous officers. Like our beloved commander.

‘Where’s this neighbour now; the one who found the body? Sidney Miller, did you say?’ I got the conversation back to the task in hand. ‘Is he still around, Tom?’

‘I sent him back to his own house,’ said Watson, ‘but I told him that you’d want to see him at some time. The guy’s obviously a key witness. Not to the murder, of course, but he’s the best we’ve got so far.’

‘Where’s DI Ebdon?’ I asked, but Watson didn’t have to reply.

‘G’day, guv.’ Right on cue, my Australian DI, Kate Ebdon, emerged from behind the Metrolamps that were illuminating the front of the house; not that I could see any reason for turning the crime scene into something akin to a
son-et-lumière
. Kate was attired in a set of white coveralls, a pair of overshoes and the sort of mob cap that made her look like an escapee from a TV hospital soap opera. She was joined by one of Linda Mitchell’s assistants who handed me a similar set of garments.

‘Come with me, Kate, and we’ll see what’s going on.’ I donned the coveralls, but refused point-blank to wear the mob cap. ‘I understand that Mrs Gregory’s upstairs in the second bedroom.’

‘Yes. It seems to be the only room that hasn’t been turned over.’

‘Turned over?’

‘Whoever this drongo was, he’s wrecked the place. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

I was gradually learning Australian slang – or Strian, as Kate sometimes called it – and gathered that the burglar to whom she was referring was a total idiot.

‘Yes, Tom Watson told me it had been well and truly trashed.’ On the way into the house, I stopped to examine the front door. There was a standard rim lock, but no sign of a forced entry. No splintered woodwork surrounded the lock area and there were no broken panes in the glass panels, one of which bore a Neighbourhood Watch sticker.

‘Looks as though it was ’loided, guv,’ said Kate, as she removed her mob cap and stuffed it in the pocket of her coveralls.

The form of felonious entry to which Kate referred was often used by spec thieves. Usually a credit card was inserted between the edge of the door and the jamb, enabling the latch to be pushed back. Providing the burglar struck lucky. These days most people were wise to it and had fitted a deadlocking cylinder night-latch. The Gregorys were no exception. I pushed at the tongue, but it moved easily.

‘You might be right, Kate,’ I said. ‘There’s a mortise lock, too, but neither of them has been engaged.’

‘Perhaps the intruder had a key,’ said Kate.

‘Surely it can’t have been that easy. It’s more likely that the intruder left the door open or, as you say, it was ’loided.’

‘Perhaps he left it open on his way out,’ said Kate, ‘but that doesn’t explain how he got in.’

Leaving the enigma of the unlocked door in the hope that it might be explained by Mrs Gregory, I started by looking around the hall. There were a couple of lengths of rope on the floor, presumably those with which Mrs Gregory had been tied up. Nearby was a wad of material that I imagined to be a gag that the killer had used to silence the dead man’s wife.

‘I hope the lab people can find something of use among that lot,’ I said, as Kate and I made our way upstairs.

Dr Henry Mortlock was in the act of packing the tools of his trade into his murder bag. Dave Poole was leaning against a wall, looking his usual chipper self, despite the fact that it was now two o’clock in the morning.

‘Whoever he was, guv, he certainly went through this room,’ said Dave.

I began a careful visual survey of the room. It was as Kate and Tom Watson had each said. The dressing-table drawers had been pulled out, their contents – mainly Mrs Gregory’s colourful underwear – thrown all over the place. The fitted wardrobes were wide open, a man’s suits and shirts and a woman’s dresses and trouser suits strewn untidily about the room. An empty, open jewellery box lay on the floor near the bed.

In the bed was the body of a man, his head covered in blood.

‘While Doctor Mortlock tells me the tale, Dave, go next door and have a few words with Sidney Miller, the guy who found Mrs Gregory in the hall. See what he’s got to say. DI Watson will tell you which house is his.’

‘Right, guv.’ Dave made his way downstairs.

I turned to the pathologist. ‘Good morning, Henry.’

‘There’s nothing bloody good about it,’ muttered Mortlock. ‘Why the hell can’t people be murdered at a respectable hour?’

‘My sentiments exactly, Henry. Is there anything you can tell me at this stage?’

‘On a superficial examination it looks as though our friend here was bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument, Harry. I’ll be able to tell you more when I get him on the slab. It smells as though he was drunk, too. He reeks of whisky.’

‘Blended or malt?’ I could smell Scotch even from where I was standing.

‘Undoubtedly cheap blended,’ said Mortlock, making a point of deliberately ignoring my attempt at humour. ‘A supermarket’s own brand, I should think.’

‘When are you going to do the post-mortem?’

‘You chaps are always in such a terrible rush,’ complained Mortlock, ‘and I suppose you want it done ASAP. I’ll make a sacrifice and do it this afternoon. See you at about two o’clock. Usual place.’ His face took on a sour expression. ‘What a way to spend a Sunday. I should’ve been playing golf.’

‘Never mind, Henry,’ I said. ‘You’ll be making holes instead of filling them.’

‘Very funny,’ said Mortlock, and with that pithy rejoinder he departed, whistling a few bars from Handel’s ‘Dead March’ from
Saul
.

Linda Mitchell, the senior forensic examiner, came into the room as Mortlock departed. ‘Can I start processing this room now, Mr Brock?’

‘Yes, it’s all yours, Linda. Will it be all right for us to have a look around downstairs?’

‘Yes, the fingerprint and photographic people should’ve finished there by now, but get their OK before you start,’ said Linda. ‘Incidentally, the whole place is a real wreck. God knows what the burglar was looking for, but he made a thorough job of turning the place upside down.’

When Kate and I reached the sitting room I could see what Linda Mitchell had been talking about. We didn’t touch anything because some of the scenes-of-crime guys were still there.

‘It’s all yours, Mr Brock,’ said one of the examiners as he packed up the remainder of his equipment. ‘It’s a right bloody mess. I’ve never seen the likes of it.’

I was forced to agree. The cabinet beneath where the television set had stood was open and DVDs and CDs had been spread about the floor. The television set itself had been hurled from the cabinet and now lay face down on the carpet. Both occasional tables had been overturned and the lamps that had been on them thrown to the floor. Two uplighters had suffered a similar fate and were lying across the floor, their glass shades shattered.

The dining room was also a scene of devastation; drawers had been pulled out of the sideboard and left on the floor, and their contents – mainly table linen – scattered over the thick pile carpet. There were pictures on the floor, too, while those that had been left on the walls were askew. In addition, a wine bottle had been emptied on to the carpet. An open, half-full whisky bottle stood on the sideboard. As Mortlock had jokingly suggested, it was a supermarket brand.

Detective Sergeant Flynn appeared in the doorway of the room and for a moment or two stood surveying the substantial damage.

‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s just like a bomb’s hit this place. Looks like a job for the anti-terrorist boys, guv?’ he suggested jocularly.

‘It’s one hell of a mess, Charlie.’

‘Our intruder certainly had a go at this lot,’ said Flynn, ‘and the upstairs is probably the same.’

‘Apart from the second bedroom, I understand. At least that’s where Mrs Gregory is at the moment, so I’m told. I wonder why the burglar left that room undisturbed?’

‘I suppose he must’ve found what he was looking for,’ said Flynn.

‘It took him long enough,’ I mused aloud. ‘And I wonder what he was after? I’ve never come across a villain who made this much mess. I very much doubt that he was a professional. No, Charlie, there’s more to this screwing than the usual sort of break-in. He must’ve been searching for something specific.’

‘Maybe Mrs Gregory can shed some light on it, guv,’ said Kate. ‘It could’ve been something that the Gregorys didn’t want the rest of the world to know about, like a naughty home-made porno DVD or something the intruder could blackmail them with.’

‘Slow down, Kate,’ I said, although I thought she might have a point. But it didn’t do to jump to a hasty conclusion before we’d analysed all the evidence. And there was plenty of that about.

We were joined by Dave Poole.

‘What’s this neighbour, Sidney Miller, got to say about all this, Dave?’ I asked.

‘He strikes me as being quite a good witness, guv,’ Dave began. ‘He said that at about eleven forty-five, just as he was preparing to go to bed, he heard a woman screaming. Being a hot night, all his windows were open and so, he later discovered, were some in the Gregorys’ house, but only the upstairs ones. He quickly worked out that the screams were coming from the Gregorys’ place. When he got here, he found that the front door was open and Mrs Gregory was lying on the hall floor just inside. He said she was naked and bound with rope around her wrists and ankles. He untied her, and she told Miller that about an hour earlier a man had broken in, grabbed her and then tied her up and gagged her. She then said that the man left, but it took her some considerable time to dislodge the gag from her mouth, and that’s when she started screaming.’

‘She said the man left?’

‘That’s what Miller said she’d told him, guv.’

‘Did you take a written statement, Dave?’

‘Not yet. Miller looked about all in, so I told him to go to bed and that someone would call on him later today to get it all down in writing.’

‘Any idea what Miller does for a living?’

‘I didn’t ask, guv, but I expect he’s something to do with an airline or a hotel. From what he was saying, it seems that a lot of the people who live in this area have jobs in and around Heathrow. In fact, he mentioned that Mrs Gregory is an airline stewardess, long haul, and is away from home more often than she’s here.’

‘What do we know about our murder victim?’

‘His name’s Clifford Gregory, and Miller thought that he might be an accountant, but he’s not sure,’ Dave said. ‘However, he’s fairly certain he’s not employed by an airline because he works at home most of the time.’

‘We’ll see if he’s got anything to add to that when we talk to him later today. In the meantime, I’ll interview Mrs Gregory if she’s sufficiently recovered. In the circumstances, Kate, I think it might be better if you came with me. She’s probably a bit fragile after an experience like this and might be more responsive to a woman officer.’

‘Maybe,’ said Kate cynically.

W
e made our way upstairs to the second bedroom at the rear of the house. The curtains were open, as were the windows, and both the bedside lights had been turned on, casting a warm glow throughout the room.

But Kate wasn’t about to have our interview stage-managed. She turned on the overhead light, left the windows open, but closed the curtains; it was a still night and there wasn’t even a ripple of air to move them.

Sharon Gregory, wearing a white satin robe, her feet curled beneath her, was reclining elegantly on a velvet-covered chaise-longue set against a wall adjacent to the window. An attractive woman, probably in her mid-twenties, she had found the time to prepare for the interview by brushing her long, honey blonde hair and applying lipstick and eye shadow. Despite the fact that it was now half past two in the morning and the windows were open, she was perspiring quite freely.

The woman constable who had been posted there to keep her company was lounging in a nearby chair. She had slackened off the cravat at her neck and undone the top two buttons of her shirt.

‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock of New Scotland Yard, Mrs Gregory, and this is Detective Inspector Ebdon. D’you feel up to telling us what happened? From the very beginning.’

‘Yes, certainly.’ Sharon smiled at me, but then cast a nervous glance in Kate’s direction. Kate Ebdon has that unnerving effect on people, especially women and villains, and particularly if the two are combined in one person. In Kate’s view everyone is a suspect until proved otherwise.