‘Come in, Aubrey,’ Gareth Morgan-Davies said cheerfully, as Aubrey put his head around the door.
‘Do you have a minute, Gareth?’
‘Of course. Sit down.’
Aubrey walked slowly forward, sat in a chair in front of Gareth’s desk, and pushed The Times across to him.
‘Have you seen this?’
Gareth laughed. ‘Yes, I was reading about it on the train on the way in: highly entertaining. The press must think it’s Christmas come early. It’s not often a story like this falls into their laps, is it? High Court judges on the run from the police, the bodies of exotic ladies found in their flats? Whatever next? What’s the world coming to? All we need to add is a touch of drugs or the Church and Bob’s your uncle – we’ll end up with one of the great scandals of our time; and what’s the betting that one or other will show up before too long?’
Aubrey did not laugh.
‘The thing is, Gareth… I’m involved, or at least I think I might be.’
Merlin showed the officers into Gareth’s room, and left discreetly, hanging an ‘in conference’ sign on the door before making his way back to the clerk’s room.
‘I’m Gareth Morgan-Davies, head of chambers, and this is Aubrey Smith-Gurney,’ Gareth said, extending his hand.
‘How do you do, sir? I’m DI Webb and this is DS Raymond.’
They all shook hands and took seats, Aubrey to Gareth’s right behind his desk, the officers in chairs in front of it. Raymond produced a notebook and pencil from his pocket.
‘Do I detect a Welsh accent, sir?’ he asked.
‘You do indeed,’ Gareth replied. ‘Cardiff. What about you?’
‘I was born in England, sir, but my family was from Llanelli originally. I never had the accent unfortunately, but I recognise it when I hear it.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ Gareth said.
There was an awkward silence.
‘Actually,’ Webb said, ‘it’s Mr Smith-Gurney we wanted to talk to.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Gareth replied, ‘but I’m his head of chambers, and he wants me to be present: just for moral support and to see fair play, you know? I hope that’s not a problem. He’s not a suspect, is he?’
Webb sat back in his chair and looked at Gareth thoughtfully.
‘A suspect in what, sir?’
Gareth shrugged. ‘I don’t know: whatever you’re investigating, I suppose.’
Webb nodded. ‘I see you have this morning’s paper on your desk, sir, so I’m going to assume you know why we’re here.’
He turned towards Aubrey.
‘We’re just looking for information, Mr Smith-Gurney. Some barristers in his former chambers told us that you knew him well. In fact, they had the impression that you and he were good friends.’
‘That’s quite true,’ Aubrey replied. ‘I’ve known Conrad for almost my whole life. We went to school together, we went to Cambridge together, and we came to the Bar together. We’ve always been close.’
‘Then perhaps you won’t mind helping us to find him, sir. Candidly, we’re worried about him. We know he’s had serious financial problems, and obviously now there’s a suspicion that he may have had something to do with the death of this lady, Greta Thiemann. He’s a man who has a high profile, and I’m afraid we can’t rule out the possibility that he might take his own life. We haven’t told his wife that, or the press, for obvious reasons, but it’s a concern; and if he is still alive, we would like to find him before he does anything stupid.’
‘If I knew where he was, I would tell you,’ Aubrey replied. ‘I don’t. But I’m pretty sure he hasn’t killed himself.’
‘Why do you say that? After all, he’s got himself into a lot of trouble, hasn’t he? He’s probably feeling desperate. I’m sure I would be, in his position.’
‘I know the man,’ Aubrey replied. ‘He won’t kill himself. He’s taken off; that’s what’s happened. But I don’t know where. He wouldn’t tell me. He wouldn’t tell anybody.’
‘Except whoever helped him escape,’ Raymond said.
‘What?’
‘Well, he must have had help from somewhere. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?’ Raymond continued. ‘We know he was at the Old Bailey until after 11 o’clock on Friday night because we were there as well. We were the investigating officers in the murder he was trying. By 8 o’clock the next morning he’s vanished into thin air. We’ve had every police officer in the country looking for him and we’ve put out alerts to all the ports and airports, and there’s no sign of him. I can’t see how he could have done that without help from somebody. When did you last see him, Mr Smith-Gurney?’
‘Last Thursday evening, at our Club. We had a drink; quite late, 9.30 to 10, I would think.’
Raymond offered his notebook.
‘Could we have the Club’s details, please sir?’
Aubrey wrote them down.
‘Can anyone confirm that, sir?’
‘Yes. The person you would want to talk to is a young man called Luke, who’s the steward in the main lounge.’
‘What did you and Sir Conrad talk about at that meeting?’ Webb asked.
Aubrey thought for some time.
‘All right. You’re going to find all this out sooner or later,’ he replied, ‘so I might as well tell you the whole story.’