Gun Street Girl (19 page)

Habsburg shrugged. “What difference could it make to have an innocent man's name dragged through the newspapers?”

“How do you know he was innocent?” I asked.

“Of course he was innocent. We all know what happened to Anna.”

“What happened to her?”

“Anna died of a self-administered, heroin-cocaine speedball.”

“Why self-administered?”

“She was the only one capable of injecting anyone with heroin at that party. Besides, everyone else was drinking champagne. My champagne. She was the only one who had heroin.”

“Is that why you invited her to the party? Because she had heroin?”

“I didn't invite her. She came with this third person. They were old friends.”

“Boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“No. I don't think so. Merely old friends.”

I opened my notebook. “The name, sir,” I said, dialing it up to maximum Scary West Belfast.

Habsburg took a long draw on his cigarette, sighed. “His name is Alan Osbourne.”

Both Lawson and I wrote down the name in our books.

“What can you tell us about this Alan Osbourne?”

Gottfried sighed heavily and fiddled with the ashtray. I lit him another cigarette and pressed it between his fingers. “He was a third-year student. PPE. Brasenose. He has graduated now of course.”

“How did you know him?”

“I knew him through the Round Table Club.”

“British?”

“Yes.”

“You don't happen to know where he is now, do you?”

“I do. He works for the government.”

“The government?”

“He works for Conservative Central Office as a researcher. I saw him about two months ago in the Reform Club. One of the few clubs in London where I have not been blackballed. He did not acknowledge me.”

Lawson and I were scribbling like mad.

“Did Michael Kelly know Alan Osbourne's name?” Lawson asked.

“I believe so. Although as far as I know he never told anyone.”

Not surprising. Michael was from Belfast where the rule was: whatever you say, say nothing.

I scratched my head and lit another fag.

Lawson was still reeling. “Let me get this straight, Herr Habsburg. Are you suggesting that the Thames Valley Police told the coroner at the Anastasia Coleman inquest not to ask you or Michael Kelly any direct questions about the ‘third man's' name?”

“I am not claiming anything. I am merely stating what happened. I was not upset about this. This is how things are done in a civilized country. My reputation was damaged as was that of Michael Kelly, but why damage the reputation of someone else?”

“But couldn't Mr. Osbourne have provided some insight into Anastasia's death?” Lawson asked.

“I doubt it. He must have been asleep when Anna injected herself.”

“You actually saw her do it?” I asked.

“No, but as I have attempted to explain no one else was capable of such an action. At that stage of the party everyone had gone but Alan, Michael, and myself. Alan was asleep upstairs. He had drunk quite a bit.”

“And then she went off to inject herself alone?” I ventured.

“Not quite.”

“Please explain.”

“She was . . . what is the word? An evangelist. An evangelist for the drug. She offered to inject Michael and myself but we declined. Both of us, however, were persuaded into smoking some of the heroin she cooked for us over tinfoil.”

I flipped through my notebook and read back my careful notes from the last few days.

“Neither you nor Michael said any of this at the inquest.”

“We weren't asked,” Gottfried replied mechanically.

“So Miss Coleman gave you and Michael heroin before injecting herself?” Lawson asked.

“Yes.”

“And Alan was there, but he didn't take the heroin because he was asleep?”

“Asleep or passed out.”

“How did the subject of heroin come up?”

“Anna told us what she was going to do and Michael and I were curious. The way she described it: she said it was the greatest experience in the world. More beautiful than sex or anything else. She told us that she was going to inject herself with a speedball and offered us the experience, but with the caution that it might be dangerous for the novice. Michael had a fear of needles, and perhaps I was nervous too, so she showed us how to ‘chase the dragon' off a piece of tinfoil. I tried it. I fell into a beautiful dream. In the morning when I awoke Anna was lying on the living-room sofa, dead.”

“And then what happened?”

“I called 999 immediately, but it was obvious that Anna was beyond saving. She was cold. She had died some hours before. Relatively peacefully, I hope. I woke Alan and Michael and told them to get out of the house before the police came. Alan pulled on his clothes and left, but Michael said that he would stay and help me deal with the situation,” Gottfried said with emotion.

“Alan left but Michael stayed,” Lawson said, writing furiously.

“I told him not to be a bloody fool, but he insisted on ‘facing the music'? Is that the expression?”

“Yes,” I said absently. “Yes it is. Why would he do that, do you think?”

“He followed his own code of honor. He was an interesting fellow. He came from some money in Ireland, new money, I think, but he wasn't embarrassed about that. He did exactly as he pleased. He was very well liked . . .”

“Was there anyone else in the house that we don't know about?” I asked.

“No. That was it. Alan, Michael, and myself.”

“When did you tell Oxford CID Alan's name?” I asked.

“I'm afraid I was not able to keep it a secret for very long. They questioned me for the entire day and night before my father found out what was happening and sent a solicitor from London.”

“You told them Alan's name that day?”

“Not quite. I believe it was the early morning of the next day. I was very tired and quite emotional. I gave them the description first. A description which was all too accurate. The artist's rendering was uncanny. Have you seen it?”

“Yes.”

“I was just so tired. And they kept asking the same questions again and again. And then they showed me Alan's photograph and I confirmed that he was indeed the third person in the house.”

“So Oxford CID knew Alan's name from very early on in the investigation?” Lawson asked.

“Yes.”

“A decision must have been taken at the highest levels of Oxford CID to protect Alan Osbourne,” Lawson said, thinking aloud.

“Protection which worked and which has lasted a long time,” I echoed.

Gottfried shrugged solemnly. “I wish I could have kept Michael out of it too. Poor chap. And now he is dead.”

“Has anyone ever warned you about keeping Alan Osbourne's identity secret?”

“No.”

“An implied threat. A direct threat. A warning?” Lawson asked.

“No, nothing like that. Ah, the coffee has grown cold. Would you gentlemen care for another pot?”

“No thank you. Just a few more questions, Herr Habsburg, and then we will need to get going. We've got a busy day ahead of us, I feel.”

Half an hour later we were done. I told Gottfried to be careful and if he saw anything suspicious or felt himself in any danger he was to call the local police.

Gottfried told us that he had private security guards sent by his father who kept a very good watch on him. We thanked him for his cooperation and walked up the Highgate Road to hail a taxi.

16: THE THIRD MAN

Conservative Central Office was only a short twenty-minute taxi ride away from Hampstead Heath.

“How do you feel about conspiracy theories now, sir?” Lawson said a little too cheekily for my liking. But he was right to be cheeky and I didn't have an answer for him. Thames Valley had snowed the coroner and had attempted to snow us. Although it posed the obvious question, if Michael Kelly was murdered for what he knew, how come Gottfried had been allowed to live? How come no one had even put the fear of God in him? He'd told us about Alan Osbourne with almost no prompting at all. No rubber hose. No physical pressure.

“This is you, gov. I can't take you into Smith Square, proper, cos of the Old Bill,” the taxi driver said. “You'll have to walk from here.”

“I'm sure this will be fine.”

We got out and paid and the taxi drove off.

I had absolutely no idea which building it was so I had to stop a passing policeman. “Excuse me, sir,” I said, “we're looking for Conservative Central Office?”

The peeler looked at Lawson and myself with a jaundiced eye. I gave him the look right back. I noticed from his strange helmet that he was actually City of London Police, not Met.

“Conservative Central Office?” I asked again.

“And what would you two gentlemen want with Conservative Central Office?” he said with a suspicious tone.

It took me a beat or two to realize what his problem was.

His problem was my Belfast accent.

The IRA had almost killed Mrs. Thatcher and her cabinet the year before and here were a couple of Micks in a hurry looking for Conservative Central Office.

I showed him my warrant card but he still wasn't entirely convinced as he walked us through the security cordon to Smith Square.

Conservative Central Office was a charming, almost quaint, three-story, Georgian building. There was another bobby standing outside. We showed him our warrants and he let us in.

A receptionist paged Alan Osbourne for us and we waited in a pastel lobby under twin portraits of Mrs. Thatcher and the Queen.

Music was bubbling from concealed loudspeakers.

“Elgar?” Lawson guessed correctly.

“Yeah.”

“It's nice.”

I nodded. Elgar's all very well, but you wouldn't want to hear the bastard on a loop from nine to five every day.

“Look at those portraits,” Lawson said. “Do you notice something funny about them?”

I looked first at the Queen and then Mrs. T. The Queen's picture was a copy of a portrait presumably done in the early seventies. Mrs. T's was a recent sitting and looked to be an original, but other than that I couldn't see anything odd about them.

“Thatcher's bigger by about three inches vertically and about six inches horizontally,” Lawson said.

Observant wee shite.

“Oh yeah.”

“He's keeping us waiting, isn't he?” Lawson said, looking at his watch.

My pager started to ring and I went up to the reception desk and asked to use the telephone.

I called Crabbie at Carrickfergus RUC.

“Detective Sergeant McCrabban.”

“It's me. You paged me.”

“Sean, where are you?”

“London.”

“London? Look, mate, we really need you back here. There's been a development in the case.”

“What development?”

“Remember Deirdre Ferris?”

“Who?”

“Sylvie McNichol's roommate.”

“Oh, her. Oh God. Let me guess, now she's turned up dead, too.”

“No.
She's
fine.”

“What, then?”

“She got herself arrested for assault.”

“Who'd she hit?”

“She went after some wee girl in Lavery's in Belfast. Glassed her in the face because the wee girl was supposedly flirting with her boyfriend. The girl's messed up. Plastic surgery, broken jaw, the whole bowling match.”

“All very seedy, I'm sure, but what's this got to do with us?”

“So the cops at Queen Street RUC are telling her that she's looking at four years in prison and she says she doesn't want to do four years in prison. She says that she can help solve a murder and she asks to speak to detectives from Carrick RUC.”

“This is getting interesting.”

“It gets better. So they call me and I go up there and she says if I can grant her immunity she'll give me an important lead in the investigation. So I tell her to give me the lead first and I'll see what I can do . . .”

“Wise move. And? Come on, Crabbie, I'm on the edge of my seat here . . .”

“She tells me that she ‘might have eyewitness testimony that could help the investigation.'”

“Very interesting.”

“I didn't have the authority to offer her any kind of immunity deal, Sean, but I'm arranging to have her transferred here to Carrick RUC tonight, so you can question her and see if it's legit.”

“Good work. We'll be back this evening. Make sure this young lady is not granted a bail hearing and is kept under your beady eye in your protective custody, OK?”

“OK. Any progress at your end?”

“A few things. I'll fill you in tonight.”

“OK, Sean.”

“See you later, mate.”

I put down the phone and in a whisper told Lawson everything that McCrabban had told me.

Deirdre Ferris seemed to be on the verge of breaking the sacred Belfast code of silence, and if you were gonna sing, the only reason to sing was to save your own skin. Thank you, Deirdre Ferris's cheating boyfriend.

“So what do we do now?” Lawson asked.

“Well, we'll brace Mr. Osbourne for all we're worth. If there's no play here, we go back to Oxford, get our stuff, get back up to Birmingham International, and fly home.”

“What do you think Osbourne will tell us?”

“I think we're about to find out.”

A breathless, grinning, slightly chubby young man with longish black hair came confidently down the stairs. He was in his shirtsleeves, a blue tie, and black suit trousers. Future PM? Future foreign secretary? Future day trader who destroys an entire city bank and causes a mini-recession because of bad investments? Maybe all three.

He offered us his hand. “Alan Osbourne,” he said. “Are you the gents from the
Mail on Sunday
?”

“No, we're not. We're detectives from the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I'm Detective Inspector Duffy and this is Detective Constable Lawson.”