The 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.’
‘Bloody hell!’ I exclaimed. ‘And to think he’s on unemployment benefit.’
‘Why shouldn’t he be, guv?’ said Dave. ‘I don’t suppose that Her Majesty’s government recognizes illegal drug dealing as a lawful occupation … yet.’
‘There was no sign of a struggle, as far as I can tell,’ continued Linda, which is what Dr Mortlock had said, ‘but we’re in the process of lifting a number of fingerprints. However, judging by the general lack of cleanliness of the room, they could belong to the three occupants before Metcalfe, at the very least. But we live in hope,’ she added with a smile.
‘Any corres?’ I asked, using the police shorthand for paperwork of any description.
‘Only an Australian passport in his name, and a credit card belonging to James Barton. I gather you’ll not be surprised by that.’
‘I guessed there’d be something of the sort. He was probably the bloke who tried to use the debit card that the bank seized. Are there any letters?’
‘I’m afraid not. But there is an entry stamp in the passport. It seems he arrived in the UK on the third of June this year.’
‘I suppose you haven’t come across a mobile phone or a BlackBerry, or anything like that. I know that James Barton owned one. He told us that he’d got a mobile.’
Linda picked up a plastic bag. ‘There’s this mobile phone, Mr Brock, but it’s a cheap pay-as-you-go job. I doubt that James Barton would’ve owned it.’
‘If Metcalfe nicked Barton’s expensive phone, he’d’ve flogged it, I expect.’ I suggested.
‘What about a rent book?’ asked Dave.
‘Haven’t found one, Dave, and we’ve done a thorough search,’ said Linda. ‘But there was this.’ She produced a small bottle of bright red nail enamel, and a mascara pencil. ‘They’d fallen down the back of the chest of drawers.’
‘I can’t see that a butch Aussie like Metcalfe was in the habit of using those,’ I said. ‘Any female clothing?’
‘No, nothing, Mr Brock.’ Linda pointed to a makeshift cubicle, the curtain of which was drawn back. ‘I checked his boudoir,’ she added sarcastically, ‘and as you can see there are only some empty hangers, a pair of jeans and a couple of shirts screwed up on the bottom. All dirty, of course. But I think I detected a whiff of Jo Malone.’
‘Who the hell’s Jo Malone?’ I asked, wondering whether this was another name to add to our list of partygoers.
‘It’s an expensive line of perfumery, Mr Brock.’ Linda shot me a pitiful smile. ‘White jasmine and mint at a guess.’
‘Oh. Well, if there was a woman living with him, she’s made a hurried departure.’ I glanced at the narrow bed, and decided that if Metcalfe had shared it with a female, both of them would have been very uncomfortable.
‘You happy for the body to be moved now?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I’ve done with it,’ said Linda. ‘DS Wright’s here somewhere.’
I sent Dave downstairs to find ‘Shiner’ Wright, the laboratory liaison officer. His responsibility was to take charge of Metcalfe’s body in order to maintain continuity of evidence while the scientific tests were carried out on it.
On our way out, we stopped again at Seamus Howard’s office.
‘We couldn’t find Metcalfe’s rent book,’ I said. ‘Any idea where he keeps it?’
Howard looked shifty. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘But you did issue him with one, didn’t you?’ asked Dave, his antenna telling him that Howard was lying.
‘He must have it somewhere,’ said Howard, but it sounded unconvincing.
‘If you haven’t provided him with one you’re committing an offence,’ said Dave. ‘Section Twenty-Four, Rent and Rooming Houses Act 1987 applies. Two years in the nick,’ he continued, instantly manufacturing a fictional piece of impressive sounding legislation, secure in the knowledge that Howard wouldn’t know anything about the law regarding rent books. ‘So you’d better hope we find one.’
Howard looked rather unnerved at Dave’s threat, but said nothing.
‘It seems that there was a woman living with Metcalfe at some time, Mr Howard. D’you know anything about that?’
‘No, I don’t. I never saw no birds coming or going. Anyway, it’s only a single bed.’
Howard was definitely a character who under different circumstances would have merited closer scrutiny, but I had no time to waste on him. We waited until ‘Shiner’ Wright had supervised the removal of Metcalfe’s body, and left Linda to make a video and photographic record of the scene. And to gather any other useful evidence she might find in the course of her search.
‘I reckon our Seamus Howard’s on heroin, guv, and that Metcalfe probably paid his rent in kind,’ said Dave, as we left the building.
‘I agree,’ I said, ‘but we don’t have the time to mess about with that. We’ll hand it over to the Drugs Squad. It’ll give ’em something to do.’
By two o’clock Dave and I were back at the ‘factory’, as we CID officers tend to call our place of work. I now had three murders to solve, and I wasn’t happy, even though this latest one might have resolved the other two.
I telephoned Steve Granger at the Australian High Commission, and told him that we’d found Bruce Metcalfe and that he’d been murdered. I also told him that the victim had arrived in the UK from Australia on the third of June this year.
Steve said he’d look into it.
‘Any news on Gregory Horton, Steve?’ I was still interested in discovering the whereabouts of the son of Maurice Horton and Diana Barton, even though I thought it was unlikely to further our enquiries. But I hate loose ends.
‘Nothing yet, Harry. I’ll let you know as soon as I have something.’
As I replaced the receiver, Kate Ebdon came into my office clutching a file. ‘I’ve been doing some ferreting, guv, and I’ve discovered the name of the Bartons’ London solicitor.’
‘How did you do that?’ I asked, although Kate could always be relied on to dig up facts that were pertinent to the case.
‘I checked with the hotel company of which he was a director, and they told me. Apparently this firm of solicitors handled all Barton’s legal affairs, personal as well as business. And since his marriage to Diana they’d handled her affairs too.’
‘So, what have you learned?’ I motioned Kate to a chair.
Kate sat down, and opened the file. ‘I obtained a copy of both wills from the solicitor. Each was the standard sort of reciprocal settlement that I’d anticipated. On her death, Diana Barton’s estate went to James Barton. But as he died within twenty-eight days, it came back to her and went to her son Gregory Horton. And as James Barton had left his entire fortune to Diana, Gregory gets the lot.’
‘How much?’
‘Give or take a few pounds, Gregory Horton’s now worth something in the region of eighteen million pounds. That’s made up of deposits, stocks and shares, and the Bartons’ house at Tavona Street. And being Chelsea that’s worth a few quid on its own.’
‘Ye Gods! If that doesn’t sound like a motive, I don’t know what does,’ I said. ‘Pity we don’t know where Gregory Horton is.’
‘Ah, but we do, guv,’ said Kate triumphantly. ‘The last address the solicitors had for him is in Tandy Road, Blair, in the Northern Territory. I’ve had a look at the map, and Blair is a small town about five miles from Tamorah and eight miles from Darwin. You’ll recall that Waimatutu Station is at Tamorah, the Patersons’ place from where someone presumably sent the letter to Metcalfe that we seized from Makepeace.’
‘It could be that Metcalfe and Gregory Horton were in this together,’ I said, ‘and that it was Horton who’d sent the letter.’ But even as I expressed that view, I realized that it didn’t make a lot of sense.
‘Nothing would surprise me with this topping, guv,’ said Kate.
I grabbed the telephone and rang Steve Granger again.
‘Kate Ebdon’s tracked down Gregory Horton, Steve,’ I said, and passed on the information she had gleaned from the Bartons’ solicitor.
‘Leave it with me, Harry. I’ll get someone on to it as soon as possible. D’you reckon this guy will still be there? If he’s just copped eighteen million, he’ll likely have shot through to some place like Sydney for the bright lights.’
‘Your guess is as good as mine, Steve, but it’ll be a long time before he lays hands on the cash.’
‘Any chance that this Gregory Horton’s up for your murders, Harry?’
‘Not if he’s still in Australia, and has been for the last month or so. But if he’s adrift, he might be involved. And eighteen million pounds makes for a bloody good motive,’ I said, repeating my previous thought. ‘But that aside, I’m pretty certain that the murders of James and Diana Barton were down to Metcalfe.’
There was a pause before Granger spoke again. ‘I think I’ll ask HQ to get one of our people from the local AFP office at Darwin to take it on, rather than the Northern Territory Police. Sounds as though it might be getting serious.’
‘How long before you’ll get an answer, Steve?’
‘It’s three o’clock here, so in Canberra it’ll be one in the morning. There’s only a half hour difference between there and Darwin. So if I get an email off now, and HQ forwards it straight on to Darwin, our man there will probably pick it up first thing tomorrow morning. With any luck, I’ll get a reply by Friday. How’s that suit you?’
‘Fine, Steve, and many thanks.’ Although I was impatient to resolve the Gregory Horton end of things, I did have other things to occupy me. At least I knew that the Australian Federal Police would pull out all the stops.
The next piece of good news to arrive was a report from the forensic science laboratory.
‘We’re getting there, Kate,’ I said. ‘The lab compared Metcalfe’s DNA with the semen found in Diana Barton, and it’s a match. And according to this,’ I continued, tapping the report, ‘that makes it a match with the handful of hair that James Barton was clutching when he was found.’
‘Well, I reckon that’s two of the murders cleared up, guv. All we’ve got to do now is find out who topped Metcalfe.’
Colin Wilberforce put his head round the door. ‘The commander would like a word, sir.’
‘Oh, he’s back, is he?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Wilberforce, with a perfectly straight face.
I walked down the corridor to where the commander presided over his paper empire.
‘You wanted to see me, sir?’
‘Ah, Mr Brock, what’s the progress on these three deaths you’re dealing with.’
‘I’m ninety per cent sure that two of them have been cleared up, sir. It’s looking as though both toppings are almost certainly down to Bruce Metcalfe.’
‘But he’s dead.’
‘Yes, I’m aware of that, sir,’ I said patiently, ‘but we’ve compared his DNA with that found at the scenes of the two Barton murders, and they’re a match to Metcalfe’s.’
‘Yes, that’s all very well,’ said the commander, pretending to understand, ‘but what about the Metcalfe murder?’
‘We’re waiting on enquiries that have been lodged with the Australian Federal Police, sir.’
‘Is there an Australian connection, then?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I explained, as simply as possible, where Gregory Horton fitted into our enquiries.
‘Is this man Horton a suspect?’
‘I don’t know, sir, but I intend to find out. Of course, if he’s in Australia—’
The commander looked alarmed, and fiddled with a paperknife. I knew what he was thinking, and it didn’t take long for him to put it into words. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting that it’ll be necessary for you and Sergeant Poole to fly to Australia, Mr Brock,’ he said sharply, suddenly realising what a huge cost this would entail.
‘Not at this stage, sir,’ I said, somewhat blithely. I couldn’t see a need to go ‘down under’ at any time in the future. But I always enjoyed winding up the commander about expenses.
‘Well, I shall need to see a substantial reason if you do make such an application, and so will the DAC,’ said the commander. He always fell back on what the deputy assistant commissioner might think, rather than offering an objection of his own. ‘We do have budgets to consider, you know. I sometimes think that you CID officers believe you can spend as much as you like in the course of an investigation.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid you and I tend to think like that, don’t you agree, sir?’ I said, in a lame attempt to remind the commander that he too was a CID officer. If only on paper. And, it would seem, only when it suited him.
‘Yes, yes,’ said the commander. ‘But if you ever reach my rank, Mr Brock, you’ll realize that there are other considerations.’ But he said it in such a way that I ruled out any possibility of promotion.
‘Did you manage to get your caravan sorted out, sir?’
‘How did you know about that, Mr Brock?’ The commander frowned.
‘I’m a detective, sir.’
Back in the incident room, I learned that the local drugs squad had already struck. They’d found a significant amount of heroin in Howard’s own living quarters, and had arrested him.
Well, at least someone was having some luck.