Division of Homicide
1 October
From: Detective Inspector Carmody
To: Inspector Gilli (Rome)
Inspector Griege (Paris)
Inspector Friemond (Geneva)
Enclosed you will find the one hundred and sixty-three (163) documents and statements relating to the case of THE CROWN VS. ACHILLE VAN GOLK. I greatly appreciate your co-operation in permitting access to your files as well as for having obtained supplementary statements for us. I do not believe we would have been able to prepare charges against van Golk for the death of Hildegarde Kohner were it not for our ability to relate her death to a larger pattern.
Indeed this has been a most difficult case to assemble on all levels. Our only lead was Miss O’Brien’s testimony that van Golk had told her the killer was an accountant named Arnold Tresting. (Tresting subsequently suffered a fatal heart attack while sleeping in the cinema.) Our only possible witness is the accused’s wife, an incurable paranoid. As you will see from the documents enclosed, we have tried to avoid submitting her statements as evidence, although without them we could not have prepared any case whatsoever.
We have begun with the accused’s medical report, in which his personal physician states that his life was threatened by his dietary habits. The statements of our psychiatrists each characterize van Golk as an extremely disturbed personality easily capable of acts of violence.
Our position was that the accused sought to avenge his declining physical condition by murdering the chefs whose food he valued most. We have the testimony of seven witnesses to a celebration prepared by Kohner, Fenegretti, Moulineaux, and O’Brien in response to the accused’s request for his favorite dinner. The theory that the accused could have planned to kill each chef symbolically according to the dish each prepared, and in the sequence of the courses themselves, was upheld by statements from our psychiatrists, and from the accused’s wife. We were advised that Mrs. van Golk’s statements are not automatically to be discounted because of her mental condition, but that we would be ill advised to try to present such testimony to a jury.
We have been able to establish only the following:
DEATH OF LOUIS KOHNER
1. Van Golk has no witnesses to verify his alibi that he was at home asleep.
2. We do not have any witnesses who saw him at the scene of the crime.
DEATH OF NUTTI FENEGRETTI
1. Airline records show that van Golk flew from London to Geneva and back.
2. We have evidence that Mrs. van Golk secured a false Swiss passport, containing a picture of the accused, in the name of Hugo Victor. (We have not been able to find this passport and presume it has been destroyed.)
3. Dr. Enstein has confirmed he agreed to provide the accused with an alibi for that afternoon, but clearly the doctor did not know the accused’s motivation. Although the accused flew to Geneva allegedly to see his wife, he did not see her that afternoon.
4. Airline records show a passenger named Hugo Victor traveled from Geneva to Rome and back within the time period the accused was allegedly in Geneva.
5. Estimated time of death of Fenegretti coincides with the time Hugo Victor was in Rome.
DEATH OF JEAN-CLAUDE MOULINEAUX
1. The accused has witnesses who saw him board a train to Brighton, and who saw him leave Victoria Station after allegedly returning from Brighton. There are no witnesses who actually saw him in Brighton.
2. We have evidence that Mrs. van Golk secured a false British passport, containing a picture of the accused, in the name of Hardy Thomas. (We have not been able to find this passport either.)
3. During the time the accused was allegedly in Brighton, airline records show that a passenger named Hardy Thomas traveled from London to Paris and back.
4. Estimated time of death of Moulineaux coincides with the time Hardy Thomas was in Paris.
DEATH OF HILDEGARDE KOHNER
1. We have evidence that Mrs. van Golk procured an electric mixer fitted with a detonating device, as well as an amount of plastic explosive known as C3.
2. We have statements that someone impersonating a female employee of the BBC arranged for and insisted upon the use of the mixer which contained the bomb.
3. Our psychiatrists concur that if the accused had been innocent, he would not have fled from Harrods in order to see his wife in Geneva.
We based our case on the fact that the accused was in collusion with his wife, taking full advantage of her distressed mental state. We argued it was the intent of the accused to murder Natasha O’Brien and that Mrs. Kohner was killed due to her unexpected use of the mixer.
Needless to say, we would not have been able to construct the plot this far were it not for your mutual co-operation. It is with regret, therefore, that I report to you the final disposition of this case.
We were prepared that a case predicated so heavily upon psychiatric supposition, and supported only by the testimony of the accused’s insane wife, might well be dismissed before being brought to trial. However, we were not prepared for the suggestion from sources close to 10 Downing Street (who assured us the matter had NOT been discussed with the Royal Family) that we negotiate with the defendant and accept his solicitor’s compromise that we refrain from pressing charges if the accused would admit himself to an institution for psychiatric care. (It appears that Mrs. van Golk is related to the Foreign Secretary, and the accused has himself been a frequent visitor to Buckingham Palace.) I was assured that if we had a stronger case, under no circumstances would there have been any suggestion of compromise.
Achille van Golk is presently a patient at St. Anthony’s Clinic, where we have him under surveillance until his departure within a few days to the Enstein Clinic in Geneva.
Although it was decided, against my judgment, to close this case, I realize you are not bound by considerations which determined the disposition in London. While I cannot, in an official capacity, provoke any further local investigation, I most certainly would be bound to honor any such requests you might have while preparing your own cases which I presume you are developing with utmost dispatch. Surely, any co-operation on my part with your own local investigations is merely reciprocating the courtesy shown to me, and cannot be viewed as contrary to policy.
Of course, it is obvious that in a sense our investigation in London has precluded any effective conclusion to this case. We have been advised by van Golk’s solicitors that if any charges are pressed, at any time, the plea would be innocence by reason of insanity.