48 Hours - A City of London Thriller (23 page)

As soon as we were told that Don Fisher had been implicated in
the mugging the Assistant Commissioner had blown his top and
ordered DCI Coombes to “find him and drag him in, if necessary”. No
such action was necessary, however, as Fisher was already on his
way to Scotland Yard to get his friend Gordon out of
trouble.

DS Scott came in with Don Fisher and a churlish looking man
whom I took to be Gordon James Coppull. They were followed a moment
later by a man who was obviously a lawyer. He was carrying a green
Harrods bag.

Introductions were affected, and then we sat down to await AC
Evans. When he arrived he looked at Fisher and failed to completely
mask his anger. Fisher had the decency to look
embarrassed.

“
Mr Fisher, you seem to have completely ruined a complex
international surveillance operation, stolen a briefcase from a
good friend of the Home Secretary, and put a suspect on notice that
he is under investigation. Well done, and all in a single
day.”

James Loftus, the lawyer, began to speak, but Fisher caught
his arm and shook his head. “I probably deserved that. However,
I’ve got the briefcase here. None of my guys touched the handle or
the locks, so you should be able to confirm it belongs to
Hickstead.”

The lawyer lifted the Harrods bag on to the table, the
briefcase still inside. Inspector Boniface carefully slid the brown
leather briefcase out onto the desk.

“
Are you sure no-one has touched the handle or the
locks?”

The former rock star nodded.

“
We’ll need your prints, of course, for elimination purposes,”
Boniface told him as he turned the briefcase to face him. Using a
silver retractable ballpoint pen the Inspector pushed the right had
side button toward the edge and the spring loaded fastener shot up.
He repeated the operation for the left had side and, using the pen
again, he opened the lid. It smelled of new leather. The inside was
pristine. I suspected that Hickstead had bought it specifically for
the diamond handover.

Inside the briefcase lay a large padded Jiffy bag and a plain
manila envelope. Nothing else.

Inspector Boniface reached inside his pocket and took out a
plastic ziplock bag containing a pair of pristine white cotton
gloves. After slipping them on, he extracted the Jiffy bag. It was
sealed. He looked at the Assistant Commissioner. He nodded and
said, “The chain of evidence has already been broken, so you might
as well open it.”

I knew enough about these things to understand that any
incriminating evidence we found would be unusable because the
briefcase had not moved directly from Lord Hickstead’s possession
to the police, who would have sealed it to preserve any forensic
evidence and recorded its processing from collection to
trial.

Boniface carefully opened the Jiffy bag and removed a black
velvet pouch. It had to be the diamonds. He opened the top of the
drawstring pouch and looked inside. For a moment he said nothing,
he simply stared at the contents. He then took the blue cardboard
envelope file he had been carrying and placed in on the table where
all of us could see it.

“
Inventory please, Sergeant.” DS Fellowes opened his notebook
to a clean yellow page. The inspector carefully tipped the contents
on to the blue folder. There were fifteen stones of different
sizes, which meant they were worth an average of sixteen thousand
pounds each. I could well believe it. I had never seen diamonds as
large, as pure or so beautifully cut, and I see a lot of jewellery
and gems as a loss adjuster. They sparkled from whichever angle one
looked at them, even under the fluorescent lighting.

For the second time that day there was a collective sharp
intake of breath around the table. DS Fellowes photographed the
diamonds and the pouch from various angles, with his mobile phone.
Taking great care, Boniface replaced the diamonds in their velvet
pouch. He then placed the pouch in an evidence bag and sealed it,
passing it to Fellowes, who wrote something on the
label.

Inspector Boniface returned to the briefcase and lifted out
the plain brown envelope, which was also sealed. Written on it were
the words ‘Dr. Crippin’. He carefully unsealed the gummed flap and
then started to open the envelope.

“
Stop!” Don Fisher shouted. “I need to explain something.” The
lawyer immediately advised him not to say anything that might
incriminate himself. Don Fisher told him that they had gone too far
for that, and that he needed to protect his family.

“
Dr. Crippin is a filth monger,” he explained. “He runs a
website called CelebrityLeaks.org. It specialises in publishing
private pictures, stolen movies and long lens shots of celebrities.
Just yesterday he posted a video of that TV weathergirl showering
topless on the beach in the French Riviera. Already that video has
almost a million hits, and the ads on that page alone are raking in
a small fortune.

I believe what you’ve got in that envelope are pictures of my
daughter Lavender and some of her so-called friends, taken in Spain
last year. I was approached by a German man who said he had ten
Polaroids that he was sure I would rather have destroyed. He asked
for a paltry sum of money, and I wish I’d paid him, but I get calls
like that regularly and most of them are rubbish.”

I thought to myself that he might be right, but Lavender was
well known as something of a self publicist, and if the Paparazzi
don’t snap her for a month she allegedly tells them where they can
find her while she’s out in some celebrity pool or on a beach,
splashing around topless. Brand Lavender needed the oxygen of
constant publicity.

Don Fisher was still talking. “Yesterday I got this text from
the blackmailing shite, Lord Hickstead, signing himself off as Jim.
It says, Thanks for the cash but keep your eye on
CelebrityLeaks.org where your fragrant daughter will soon be making
an appearance.”

“
So, that’s why you had your men tail Hickstead and steal his
briefcase after he had visited his safety deposit box?” Boniface
asked.

“
Yes. Believe me, that girl is in the deepest trouble of her
short life. I told the TV company she’s been working with to get
her home today from Italy. They whined about their shooting
schedule. I told them if she wasn’t home tonight it would be a
different and more fatal kind of shooting they would have to worry
about. I was bloody angry.”

“
And you believe that these Polaroid photographs in this
envelope are intimate shots of your daughter?”

The old rocker nodded unhappily.

“
Then, why didn’t you open the case and destroy them?” the
Assistant Commissioner asked.

“
Because, as much as I want to protect my family, I need the
scum we keep calling Lord Hickstead to go down, to lose everything,
to understand first hand the disgrace that Lavender faces. I
realise that the boys got a little bit overzealous and made an
executive decision to snatch the photos before he could sell them
on. But remember that Gordo here and Dirk have known Lavender since
she was born; we have video footage of them both bottle feeding her
at the studio. She’s like a daughter to them. She might need a
short sharp shock from you boys to bring her into line, but nobody
deserves photos like those to be published on the
internet.”

“
So she has admitted to you that the photos exist, and she has
described their subject matter?” It was the Assistant Commissioner
again.

“
No. She can’t remember. She was probably out of her head. It
was the German boy who told me what was on them, but I wouldn’t
believe him.”

“
You realise, of course, that these photos are evidence that
could be used to convict Hickstead. They will probably have his
fingerprints on them, and that would be enough evidence to bring
him in and sweat him, probably enough to get a warrant to search
his safety deposit box.”

The father nodded silently. There were tears in his
eyes.

Inspector Boniface spoke gently to Don Fisher, father to
father.

“
Don, if we use these photos at all it will be to get him off
the streets. I assure you that between the Met and the City Police
we will be looking at charges that go way beyond threatening to
post these shots on the internet. In which case, these photos will
never see the light of day in court.”

Somewhat mollified, Fisher thanked the Inspector.

“
Mr Loftus, as Mr Fisher’s legal representative you need to
advise him that he and his two colleagues will be asked to accept a
Simple Caution, and that whilst a Caution is a not criminal record,
their fingerprints and DNA may be retained under the appropriate
Acts of Parliament.”

“
Is this really necessary, Bryn?” the lawyer queried,
revealing his familiarity with the Assistant
Commissioner.

“
Jim, you know full well that I am putting my neck on the
block offering a Simple Caution at all. We should really be
referring this to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

Assistant Commissioner Bryn Evans responded
reasonably.

The meeting broke up and Don Fisher approached Dee and I.
“Sorry about all of this. If my interference stops you getting your
money back, just let me know. OK?”

“
OK,” I agreed, and he left the room to receive his
Caution.

“
We could be rich after this,” Dee said. “Two people have each
offered us a quarter of a million pounds to put Lord Hickstead
away.” She smiled and linked my arm.

“
We,” I teased. “When did it become we? Surely you mean
me?”

“
Oh no, you obviously haven’t read the small print of our
agreement. All recovered monies are split fifty-fifty. Why do you
think I’ve been so nice to you?”

My face obviously fell as I searched hers to gauge whether or
not she was serious, because finally she could hold it no longer
and she laughed out loud.

“
For a cynical City loss adjuster you are pretty gullible. By
the way, did you know that the word gullible is not in the
dictionary?”

I frowned, and she laughed out loud again.

Chapter
50

Ashburnham Mews, Greenwich, London. Thursday, 11pm.

I was lying flat on my back with my hands between my head and
the pillow. I couldn’t sleep. It seemed to me that if I was on a
jury I would convict Lord Hickstead on the basis of the evidence
that was already available. Although I understood that much of it
was circumstantial, it was beginning to become
overwhelming.

The police were testing the Polaroids for fingerprints and
were quite hopeful of finding definite proof. When the fingerprint
technician collected the photos, he said that the chemical process
used by Polaroid to develop the picture in the camera leaves a soft
residue on the surface which brings out the ‘ridges and whorls’ of
a fingerprint very nicely.

The police had been busy, and had tracked down photos and
other details of all those known to own an Old Navitimer Mecanique
by accessing the DVLA database of driving license photos and the
Passport Agency’s database, which included details such as height
and distinguishing marks. Lord Hickstead was the only man on the
spreadsheet, provided by Breitling, who matched the description
given by Nour and De Montagu in terms of height, build, ethnicity
and eye colour. Nikon UK had helpfully taken the Breitling list and
checked it against their registered owners of the P100. The only
match had been Lord Hickstead.

Vastrick Security had also been working hard to build a full
profile of Lord Hickstead, from his schooldays to the present. The
file was thick with copies of his school reports and certificates,
his university papers, his Trade Union activities, his numerous
complaints about me and his insurers, press cuttings and a video
from YouTube showing him being humiliated on screen by Don Fisher.
There was whole section dedicated to his relationships with the
victims of his blackmailing scheme. It consisted of lists of names
derived from school, university, Trade Union Membership records,
director information from Companies House and AGP’s list of
individuals who travelled to the Partners’ meeting with Andrew
Cuthbertson.

Between them, the police and Vastrick could connect Hickstead
with three dead bodies and two living blackmail victims. They could
also place him in South Africa and Thailand, where 48hrs.co.za was
based and registered.

Dee came out of the en suite bathroom and looked at me. She
scowled.

“
What’s the matter?” I asked.

“
Hmmm. Typical man,” she murmured, climbing into bed and back
towards me.

“
Have I done something wrong, Dee?”

“
You don’t even know, do you?”

I scoured my memory banks for what I could have done to offend
her, and came up blank. I tried again.

“
I’ve had a lot on my mind. Have I missed
something?”

Without turning around she said sharply, “Last night was our
first week anniversary and you said nothing, did nothing and just
let it pass. Hmmm.”

I was taken aback. I hadn’t realised that Dee needed that kind
of reassurance. I turned on my side and placed my hand on her
shoulder. “Sorry, Dee, it was thoughtless of me.”