All Quiet on Arrival (8 page)

‘No.'

I imagined that to be a lie, too.

‘Why did Mrs Barton hold a party?' I continued to press the girl even though I thought she perhaps didn't know any of the answers to my questions. ‘From what I heard, she was a quiet sort of woman. Not the type to have a party where loud music was being played to such an extent that the neighbours complained to the police. And where half naked girls were running about.'

Shelley dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, and then blew her nose. ‘She said she wanted to celebrate having a new kitchen installed. We all had to have a look at it, and say wow.'

‘
A new kitchen?
' I'd heard of some strange reasons for holding a party, but that was a new one on me. I went on to a different tack. ‘Were you aware that Thomas Hendry had had sexual intercourse with Mrs Barton?'

‘When? On Saturday?'

‘No. I'm talking about the beginning of this year. That's why he was sacked as a steward.'

‘Oh that. Yeah, Tom told me about that. I thought you meant last Saturday. He said that when he was on the cruise this woman paid him to screw her. He said it happened about six times. I think it was very unfair of them to sack him for something that was the woman's fault.'

‘Did you know that that woman was Diana Barton?'

‘No, he never said who she was.'

‘I suggest that he murdered her out of revenge for having lost him his job.'

‘No, of course he never. He was annoyed about getting the push, but he wouldn't kill no one. That'd be a daft thing to do. Anyway, like I said, I never knew it was Diana.'

I doubted that somehow, but I nodded to Dave, and let him take over.

‘How long have you and Tom been living together?' asked Dave.

Shelley paused for a moment. ‘About a couple of years, I s'pose. Mind you, he's at sea a lot. Or was.'

‘And you didn't mind him having sex with other women?' Both Dave and I knew, from what Captain Richards had said, that Hendry had made a practice of bedding willing women passengers.

‘No, of course I never. He was away for long periods at a time, and you can't expect him to go without,' said Shelley with a candid admission of her tolerance. ‘That last cruise he was on, when he got the sack, lasted over a month. So he has it off when he can get it.' Shelley paused again. ‘And the same goes for me when he ain't here.'

‘Are you sure you don't know where he's gone, Shelley?' I took the questioning back.

‘No, I don't.'

‘Does Tom have any relatives, any friends, where he might've gone?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Where was Tom yesterday evening?'

‘He picked me up from the supermarket when I finished me shift, just after four o'clock that was, and took me home. We went out for a pizza at about eight, had a drink at a pub and then went back home.'

‘What time would that have been?'

‘About eleven, maybe quarter past.'

That might have been the truth, but there again it might not. However, I concluded that there was little else that we could obtain from Shelley Maxwell. I admitted her to police bail, and sent her home. I told her that she should advise the police if and when Hendry returned home. But I doubted that she would.

I
came to the conclusion that we had wasted our time talking to Shelley Maxwell. She hadn't told us anything useful about the party. Furthermore, I had great difficulty in believing that anyone would hold a party to celebrate the installation of a new kitchen. There again, it was Chelsea, and all manner of strange things go on there.

I could tell that, for the most part, Shelley had been avoiding the truth in an attempt to shield her live-in lover. If that were the case, she hadn't done a very good job. Even so, I was fairly certain that she knew where Hendry would have gone following his dramatic flight, and I just hoped that one of the Hampshire Constabulary patrols would pick him up. I thought it highly likely he would make for London, there being a fallacy harboured by villains that they can get lost there. It ain't so.

We moved on to Tadley Street, which was not far from Birley Road.

‘Are you Carl Morgan?'

‘Yes, that's me. Who are you? Are you from the company?'

‘No. Mr Morgan, we're police officers. May we come in?'

‘Yeah, sure. What's it all about?' Morgan took us into the front room of the house.

Once there, I introduced Dave and me, and explained that we were from Scotland Yard.

‘I'm investigating the murder of a Mrs Diana Barton last Saturday in Chelsea.'

‘Who? I've never heard of a Diana Barton. And I've never been to Chelsea. In fact, I never go to London. Are you sure I'm the bloke you want to talk to?'

I was certain we had got the right man, but didn't bother to say as much.

‘I understand that you were a steward on the same cruise liner as Tom Hendry.'

‘Yes, that's right. Look, what's this all about?'

‘Bear with me, Mr Morgan,' I said. ‘Were you aware that he was dismissed in early February?'

‘Yes, it was the day we docked here at Southampton. He was stupid enough to have sex with a woman passenger. He was always doing it, but on this occasion her husband complained, and the skipper put Hendry ashore. Permanently.'

An elderly grey-haired woman entered the room. ‘What is it, Carl?' She stared suspiciously at Dave and me as we stood up. ‘Who are these people, son?'

‘They're police officers from London, Ma. They want to talk to me about a murder up there.' Morgan glanced at me. ‘This is my mother,' he explained.

‘A murder? You don't know anything about a murder, do you, son?' asked his mother, as she sat down on a sofa beside him. She glared at the two of us.

‘No, Ma.'

I gave Morgan the brief details of the murder, and told him that when officers called at the house in Tavona Street, the man who answered the door gave the name of Carl Morgan. ‘But,' I said, ‘I can see that you're not him.'

‘I'll bet that was Hendry,' said Morgan, clearly annoyed. ‘It was the best thing the company did when they got shot of him. He was always in trouble.'

‘Really? What sort of trouble?'

‘Fiddling, mainly. For example, he'd nick a bottle of champagne from the bar, keep it and then put it on a passenger's bill. All the passengers were given company credit cards at the start of the voyage. Most of them never bothered to check their account at the end of the cruise, and settled up. Or if they queried the champagne, the purser would just knock it off.'

‘Is that all?' asked Dave.

‘No way,' said Morgan. ‘For a while, Hendry doubled as a cocktail steward in the Coconut Bar, but he was fiddling passengers' chits there, too. Usually by bunging a few tots on the bill of a passenger who was three sheets to the wind. But the purser could never prove it, and when he spoke to the passengers they always said they couldn't remember how much they'd had to drink the night before. It was only simple stuff, like putting an extra tot of spirits – whisky, brandy, gin or vodka – on the chit. But it all added up, and when Hendry had fiddled enough tots to make up a bottle – that's twenty-six tots – he'd have a bottle away from the store. Anyway, the purser banned him from bar duty just the same. He was pretty switched on, was the purser.'

‘How d'you know all this?' asked Dave.

‘There are a lot of fiddles going on, and being a steward you don't miss much, believe me. But I never did it,' added Morgan, keen to distance himself from Hendry's nefarious activities. ‘It wasn't worth getting the sack for the sake of a few quid. Anyway, if you looked after the first-class passengers, they always gave you a good tip at the end of the cruise. Some of them even bunged you each time you served them.'

‘Where were you last Saturday night, Mr Morgan?' I asked. ‘And last night?' Despite his protestations of innocence, I still wanted to make certain that Morgan was telling us the truth.

‘He was here with me,' said Morgan's mother. ‘He's hardly left the house since he got back from his last trip.'

‘That's right,' agreed Morgan. ‘I don't go out much when I'm on shore leave. My father slung his hook years ago, so my mother's by herself most of the time. It's bad enough leaving her on her own when I'm away, so when I'm at home I spend as much time with her as I can.'

Dave and I stood up. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Morgan, and you too, Mrs Morgan,' I said. ‘We'll not need to trouble you again.'

‘It's Mrs Marsh,' said Morgan's mother. ‘I remarried, but I'm a widow now.'

‘If you're looking for someone who did your murder, I'd start with Hendry,' said Morgan, as he saw us to the front door. ‘He's a bad 'un if ever I saw one.'

I reckoned he was probably right. So, all we had to do now was find Hendry.

But that too was resolved for us. As we were walking back towards the police station, my mobile rang.

‘Harry, it's Jock Ferguson. You'll be happy to know we've got your boy for you.'

‘Splendid, Jock. Where is he?'

‘On his way back from Southampton General hospital as we speak. He was captured by a traffic unit. Apparently they spotted him on the M3, and he took off. Speeds of up to a hundred miles an hour.'

‘Bloody hell! What was he driving, Jock, a Ferrari?'

‘Would you believe an R-reg Ford Escort? Anyway, our traffic lads called in other units in an attempt to box him in, but he swung on to the A31 at Shawford Down, and started making his way back to Southampton. But they put a stinger down at Otterbourne. He tried to go on, but eventually he lost it and crashed into a tree.'

‘Was he injured in the crash? You mentioned that he was in hospital.'

‘Surprisingly no, Harry, but he had a nasty gash on his right forearm, so they took him in to Southampton General to get him stitched up.'

‘That was probably caused when he did a header through his kitchen window,' I suggested.

‘Maybe, Harry. Anyway, he'll be back here at Central nick very shortly.'

‘Thanks for your help, Jock. I'll see you there.'

It was six o'clock by the time that Thomas Hendry arrived at Southampton Central police station. Having had very little sleep, Dave and I had been on the go from first thing this morning. It had been a long day, but interviewing Hendry couldn't wait.

‘Hendry will be charged with dangerous driving, and failing to stop for police,' said Jock Ferguson. ‘But if you charge him with murder, I doubt the Crown Prosecution Service will worry too much about taking him to court for driving offences.'

Hendry carved a pitiful figure when he was brought into the interview room. He was wearing a bloodstained tee shirt and jeans, and his right arm was bandaged and in a sling. God knows how he managed to drive with an injured arm, but desperation will often summon a hitherto unknown resourcefulness among those attempting to escape the police.

‘I'm Detective Chief Inspector Brock of Scotland Yard, and this is Detective Sergeant Poole,' I said. ‘This interview will be recorded.'

Hendry stared at me, but said nothing.

‘Why did you run away the moment you heard us at your front door in Birley Road?' I asked.

‘I thought you were going to arrest me,' said Hendry, leaning forward and resting his injured arm on the table between us.

‘Why should you think that?'

‘It's what you do, innit? The police, I mean. You find someone and fit 'em up with a job what they ain't done.'

I knew Hendry had one conviction behind him, but I wondered how many others he'd avoided. He seemed to have a contemptuous view of the police that was not warranted by a single entry on his criminal record.

‘You were at twenty-seven Tavona Street, Chelsea, on the night of Saturday the twenty-seventh of July.'

‘Who says I was.'

‘Shelley Maxwell.'

‘You don't want to listen to what that silly moo says. Half the time she doesn't know what she's on about.'

I produced the photograph we had obtained of Hendry from the shipping office.

‘The police officer who called at twenty-seven Tavona Street has seen this photograph, and positively identifies you as the man to whom he spoke that night.' I hoped that Dave would be impressed by my sentence construction. ‘He also mentioned that Shelley was wearing a thong and nothing else.'

Hendry smirked at that, and leaned back, grimacing as his injured arm came off the table. ‘OK, so I was there, but I didn't have nothing to do with Diana's death.'

‘Who said anything about a death?'

‘Well, that's what this is all about, innit?'

Dave shot a warning glance in my direction. I knew that look; he was implying that I should caution Hendry. But I didn't think so. Not yet.

‘Yes, it is,' I said. ‘The dead body of Diana Barton was indeed found there shortly after your departure, but I suppose you maintain that you didn't kill her.'

‘I didn't kill her.' Hendry drew the words out, emphasising each one.

‘Then who did?'

‘I don't have a clue, mister.'

‘When did you discover that she was dead?'

‘It was just before that copper came knocking at the door. The party had more or less wound up by then, and everyone had gone home except Shell and me. I didn't know where Diana had gone, and so I had a look round the house so I could say cheers and thanks for the thrash. When I got to her bedroom, I saw her body. There was blood everywhere, and I could see she'd been stabbed a lot.'

‘If you had nothing to do with it, why didn't you call the police?'

Hendry sighed again. There was a long pause before he answered. ‘We've got history, Diana and me,' he said eventually.

‘Care to explain that?' I guessed what was coming, but we knew nothing beyond the fact that Hendry had been dismissed in February for having sexual intercourse with Diana Barton on the cruise.