All Quiet on Arrival (18 page)

‘She did disappear from time to time,' said Debbie, clearly more observant than her partner. ‘And some of the men disappeared at the same time.'

‘D'you remember which of the men?' asked Dave, busily making notes in his pocketbook.

‘There was a rather louche character called Tom. He had a girl with him called Shelley, one of the naked ones. Tom certainly went upstairs with Diana at one time.'

Dave seemed to be impressed by Debbie's use of the word ‘louche'. ‘What d'you do for a living, Miss Clark?' he asked.

‘I'm a librarian at London University,' said Debbie.

‘Really? I graduated from there,' said Dave, ‘but I don't remember you.'

‘I've only been there for a year,' said Debbie. ‘Before that I worked at a public library. Pretty dull.'

‘Was anyone else absent at the same time as Mrs Barton?' I asked, steering Dave and Debbie away from their cosy tête-à-tête. ‘Apart from Tom.'

‘Yes, Bruce the Australian. I recall Diana coming back into the room and taking his arm. I didn't hear what she said, but they both disappeared.'

Dave produced the E-fits that Marilyn Munro had produced. ‘Have a look at these, Mr Sims, and tell me if any of them are like the Bruce you saw.'

Sims studied each one of the E-fits carefully. Eventually he selected one. ‘That's the nearest,' he said. It was the one that Tom Hendry had compiled.

Dave handed the prints to Debbie Clark. After looking at them closely, she picked out the same one.

‘Have either of you seen this man since?' I asked, taking in Sims and his partner with a glance.

‘No,' said Sims.

‘Nor me,' said Debbie. ‘Is he the man who murdered Diana?'

‘We don't know,' I said. ‘But we think he might be able to assist us with our enquiries.'

Dale Sims laughed. ‘You policemen always say that,' he said. ‘At least they do on television.'

I declined to dignify that comment with a reply. ‘Thank you both for your time,' I said, as Dave and I stood up. ‘I don't suppose that we'll need to see you again.'

‘I hope you catch him,' said Sims, as he escorted us to his front door. ‘Diana was a nice woman.'

It was getting on for ten o'clock that evening by the time we got back to Curtis Green. I told Dave to go home for what we in the CID call an early night.

Although it was nearly eleven o'clock by the time I got back to Surbiton, I was in the office by half past eight on the Wednesday morning.

No sooner had I stirred my coffee and lit a forbidden cigarette – to hell with the law – when Colin Wilberforce came into my office with a message form in his hand.

‘What is it, Colin?'

‘Bruce Metcalfe's been found, sir.'

‘Where?'

‘Fifty-four Talleyrand Street, Earls Court, sir.'

So Kate Ebdon was right in thinking that he tried to lose himself among fellow Australians,
I thought. ‘Is he in custody?'

‘No, sir, he's dead.' Wilberforce flourished the message form. ‘And it's described in this as a suspicious death. The owner of the house identified him, and among his possessions was a credit card in the name of James Barton. Mr Cleaver is acting commander and he directs that you investigate.'

If Alan Cleaver said it was down to me there was no argument. He was a career CID officer, and knew what he was doing.

‘As a matter of interest, where is the commander, Colin?'

‘He's taken a couple of days off, sir,' said Wilberforce. ‘Apparently something to do with refurbishing his caravan,' he added with a grin.

That I could believe. Our illustrious commander always struck me as the sort of individual who'd spend his holidays in a caravan. But to me a week or two in a caravan with Mrs Commander sounded like a holiday to be avoided like the plague. ‘What's happened so far?' I asked.

‘Local CID are on scene and dealing, sir, but when they did a check on the PNC and found you had an interest they referred it to us. Dr Mortlock's been called, as has Linda Mitchell and her team.'

‘Any indication of how he was murdered, Colin?' asked Dave.

‘None at all, Dave,' said Wilberforce. ‘The message merely said a suspicious death.'

‘Looks like we're off again, guv,' Dave said. ‘I'll get the car.'

‘It's the rush hour, Dave. Get a traffic car to take us,' I said with some misgiving. ‘I want to get there before the locals make too much of a mess of our crime scene.'

So once again, I placed my life in the hands of the Black Rats, arguably the finest drivers in the world. That said, there was a story circulating in the Metropolitan Police some years ago that a senior politician, on urgent business, was taken from the Foreign Office to Heathrow Airport at high speed. Conveyed in a police car, he was accompanied by a motorcycle escort. He had intended to work on his dispatch box during the journey, but by the time he arrived – a bare twenty minutes later – he'd screwed up its contents in sheer terror. On staggering white-faced from the traffic car he expressed the opinion that his life seemed to be in grave danger only when he was surrounded by the police.

I knew how he felt.

T
he house at Talleyrand Street was the usual sort of shabby Victorian dwelling common to that area of Earls Court and within walking distance of the famous exhibition centre. Divided into bed-sits, the house was largely inhabited by single people either striving to make a living, or surviving on the generous handouts provided by Her Majesty's government.

The front door was guarded by a policewoman who, although undoubtedly slender, had the misfortune to appear overweight because of the bulky yellow jacket that she was obliged to wear over her stab-proof vest. The jacket was emblazoned with the word POLICE front and back, just in case you couldn't tell by the Metropolitan Police badge on her hat, the chequered cravat, the personal radio and the long truncheon at her side.

Having satisfied a uniformed inspector that we were in the Job, and waited while he laboriously wrote our details on his clipboard, we found the local DI outside a door on the first floor.

‘What's the SP?' I asked.

‘The short story is that the dead man didn't come down to collect his mail this morning, guv. So the guy who owns the place went up to his room to give it to him, and found your Mr Metcalfe as dead as the proverbial dodo.'

‘Where is the owner now?'

‘In his office talking to one of my detective sergeants.'

‘I'll get around to him later,' I said. ‘What's the owner's name?'

‘Howard, guv.'

‘Right, but first I'd better have a look at the body.'

‘The pathologist is in there doing the business, guv.' The DI pointed at an open door. Linda Mitchell was waiting with the DI.

‘Good morning, Linda,' I said. ‘Nice day for it.'

‘Matter of opinion, Mr Brock,' said Linda.

The room that was the scene of our murder was furnished in the sparse way I'd come to expect of cheap rooming houses. A worn carpet, dirty curtains, a chest of drawers on which were a television set and a small mirror, a single unmade bed along a wall, a sink that doubled for washing and washing up, and an armchair. The armchair was occupied by the dead body of my latest victim. A door led to a lavatory.

‘Just finished,' said Dr Henry Mortlock. ‘I meant that
I've
just finished,' he added, and pointed at Metcalfe. ‘He was finished some time ago.'

I've mentioned Henry Mortlock's black humour before.

‘Preliminary findings, Henry?'

‘This is an interesting one, Harry. There's an entry wound at the left temple.' Mortlock pointed with a thermometer, presumably in case I couldn't work out where the man's left temple was situated by the hole in his head. ‘It's just over ten millimetres across, but if it was an entry wound made by a bullet it must've been a big bullet, and there's no gunshot residue that I can see. Nor does it look as though it was made with a bladed instrument. The murder weapon could have been something pointed and rounded in section, I suppose. And from his post-mortem posture, I'd say that he was taken by surprise. Bit of a strange one altogether. I'll have to get him on the table and carve him up before I can tell you anything else.'

‘Time of death?'

‘Ditto,' said Mortlock tersely, as he packed the sinister tools of his trade into a little black bag. And with that pithy comment, he wandered off, humming a theme from a Bizet opera. Or so Dave told me later.

‘Just to confirm Doctor Mortlock's opinion, have you come across any shell cases?' I asked Linda Mitchell who, dressed in her usual sexy white coveralls, had followed me into the room. The rest of her team was still downstairs in their van.

‘We've not had a chance to do a detailed examination yet, Mr Brock, but on my initial quick visual there weren't any signs of any.'

‘I'll leave you to it, then.'

Linda leaned over the banister rail and shouted. ‘Send my lads up here, someone.'

Dave and I went downstairs, and found the owner. ‘I'm Detective Chief Inspector Brock of Scotland Yard,' I said, ‘and this is DS Poole. What's your name?' I knew what the local DI had said, but it's always as well to check.

‘Seamus Howard.'

The owner of the house was perspiring heavily, although it was not hot in the room. I wondered if he too was a drug user, or if the presence of the police had brought him out in a sweat.

‘What can you tell me, Mr Howard?'

‘I've already told this fellow here,' said Howard, indicating a youngish man. Howard's accent told me that he hailed from Liverpool. ‘And I told that inspector, too.' He spoke wearily, as though tired of being asked the same question over and over again.

‘And who are you?' I asked the other man, although the local DI had told me he was one of his sergeants.

‘DS Todd, guv.'

‘OK, you can leave it to us now, Skip.'

‘Cheers, guv,' said Todd, and departed, doubtless pleased to be relieved of any involvement in my murder enquiry. Murder enquiries meant late nights and lost weekends.

‘Now, Mr Howard, perhaps you'd tell me what you know. Again.'

Howard let out a sigh. ‘Like I told the other scuffers—'

‘The what?' demanded Dave.

‘It's what we call the police in Liverpool.'

‘Well, not down here you don't,' said Dave in one of his more threatening voices. ‘Go on.'

‘Oh, sorry.' Howard seemed bemused by Dave's objection. ‘Anyhow, like I was saying, Bruce usually comes in here of a Wednesday morning to collect his benefit cheque, but he didn't show. That was unusual because his benefit always comes on a Wednesday. I thought he might've overslept, so I went up there. Bloody nasty shock finding him dead in his armchair, I can tell you.'

‘Yes, it must've been quite awful,' said Dave sarcastically.

‘D'you know if Metcalfe had a job, Mr Howard?' I asked. ‘Regular employment.' Howard had mentioned a benefit cheque, so I thought it unlikely.

‘I dunno about that, but he usually went out around eight in the morning. I dunno if he had a job, though. P'raps he was looking for one.'

‘And did his benefit cheque arrive today?'

‘Yeah, just this one letter.' Howard handed over a buff envelope. ‘Like I said, it's the Giro cheque for his benefit.'

I glanced briefly at the letter and handed it to Dave.

Dave ripped it open. ‘Yes, sir, it's a handout from our benevolent government. Unemployment benefit. That was quick considering he's only been unemployed since the end of July. I'll bet he was drawing this while he was working for Barnes at the kitchen company.' Dave had an ingrained dislike of people who defrauded the government, and therefore him as a taxpayer. ‘If I thought he'd got any estate, I'd make sure the Work and Pensions office clawed it back.'

‘What can you tell me about Metcalfe, Mr Howard?' I asked. ‘For a start, when did he move in here?'

Howard turned to a large book on his desk, and thumbed through the pages. ‘Twenty-ninth of July.'

That, of course, was the day he was sacked by Barnes at the kitchen company, and also the day he left his previous lodgings at Dakar Street, Fulham. I wondered briefly why he'd bothered to move. It was clearly nothing to do with shortage of money. But maybe his sudden move had been prompted by a fear that Barnes might've informed the police about his drug habit.

‘And you've no idea where he was working, assuming he
was
working.'

‘No idea,' said Howard.

‘If he was working, he was defrauding the Work and Pensions people,' muttered Dave, returning to his original theme. ‘Did Metcalfe have any visitors, particularly yesterday or early this morning, Mr Howard?' he asked.

Howard shrugged. ‘He might've done, I s'pose, but I don't keep a check on who comes and goes.'

‘Were you aware of anybody calling on him at any time?' persisted Dave with, for him, remarkable patience.

‘Nope.'

And that, I decided, was as much as we were going to get out of Howard for the time being. I returned to the scene of Metcalfe's murder.

‘How are you getting on, Linda?'

‘We found this in a plastic bag in the lavatory cistern,' said Linda, displaying a number of packets of white powder. ‘Very original hiding place, that is,' she added acidly. It seemed that some of the CID's cynicism had rubbed off on her.

‘Heroin?' I queried.

‘Most likely, Mr Brock.' Linda smiled. ‘I doubt that it's talcum powder, but you'll have to wait for the lab report.'

‘If it is heroin, is there enough of it to make him a dealer?'

‘I should think so. I reckon there's about a hundred grams here which is …' Linda paused as she did the mental arithmetic. ‘At least five thousand pounds-worth at the current street value. If it's heroin, that is.'