Exit Stage Left (9 page)

‘I’m a
chief
inspector,’ I said.

Once we were in the car and on our way back to Belgravia police station, Dave asked, ‘What exactly did we achieve by that little charade, guv? It seemed like a monumental waste of time.’

‘What we achieved, Dave, is to establish as fact that Debra Foley is a prostitute. And that opens up a whole new line of enquiry. That she’s on the game, albeit in a selective sort of way, means there may be a connection between her hiring out her body and the murder of Lancelot Foley.’

‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Dave. ‘Who’d have thought it, sir? Still, I think you’ve just lost her one of her customers. I doubt that Tate will be going anywhere near her again.’

On Tuesday morning, I gathered my team in the incident room to brief them on the current state of the enquiry.

‘So far,’ I began, ‘we’ve established that Debra Foley, using the name Corinne Black, is engaged in prostitution at an apartment in a block of flats called Keycross Court in Keycross Road. And we have to thank DS Carpenter and DC Chance for obtaining the information that led us to the flat where Debra meets her clients.’

‘Are we going to do Debra Foley for that, guv’nor, or the owner of the apartment block?’ asked DS Tom Challis. ‘Or even both of them?’

‘No, Tom. It’s of no concern to Homicide and Major Crime Command, and I doubt that the local nick would be all that interested either. There are hundreds of call girls working in London, and if they’re solo operators no offence is committed by the owner of the block of flats unless there are two or more women working there, in which case the premises would be defined as a brothel. Apart from anything else, prostitution itself is not an offence, only soliciting for it. But you lot know all that, don’t you?’

‘They talk of little else in the canteen, guv’nor,’ said an anonymous voice, a comment that raised a laugh.

‘Our only interest,’ I continued, ‘is whether Debra Foley’s prostitution has any bearing on the murder of Lancelot Foley. As I said to Sergeant Poole, where there’s prostitution there’s usually crime.’

‘What about James Corley, the MP?’ asked Dave. ‘Is he still in the frame?’

‘No longer a person of interest, Dave,’ I said. ‘We don’t know for sure that he’s one of Corinne Black’s tricks – he could’ve been visiting any of the flats – and it doesn’t matter if he was having it off with her. We’ve found out what we wanted, and it’s better to leave sleeping dogs tucked up in their kennels, especially as Corley has a voice in the House of Commons. We can do without a complaint from that source.’ Despite the commander’s love of paperwork, I could visualize him having a heart attack if a docket marked Parliamentary Question landed on his desk.

‘So what’s next, guv’nor?’ asked Kate Ebdon.

‘Next is a full background check on Debra Foley, her relatives and her friends. I’ll leave that to you, Charlie,’ I told Flynn. ‘Once we see what that turns up, we’ll know which way to go next. At the same time, I want a thorough background check on Lancelot Foley. The same for him: relatives, associates and any other dirt we can dig up. And that’s a job for you, Tom,’ I said to Challis, ‘but work with Charlie because the two are bound to overlap. Use as many of your colleagues as you need to, because time is of the essence. The trail is already getting cold.’ I knew from experience that the more time that passed after a murder, the more difficult it was to identify the killer. The ideal was to crack it in the first twenty-four hours. ‘And, finally, you may wish to know that Lancelot Foley will be burnt to a cinder at Golders Green Crematorium tomorrow at half-past ten.’

‘D’you want me to come with you, guv?’ asked Dave.

‘Yes, but only to drive and observe. I’ve no doubt that the press will be there in force, and we don’t want to look too obvious by going in mob-handed. Debra Foley tells me that there won’t be a religious service, but I suppose someone might be leaned on to say a few words in the form of a eulogy.’ I glanced across the room at DI Ebdon. ‘You and I will be there, Kate, to see if there’s anyone among the congregation who interests us.’

‘I’d better get the mothballs out of my Old Bailey suit, then,’ said Kate.

‘One other thing, guv,’ said Dave. ‘I ran a check on Charles Tate’s business with Companies House. All legit and above board, apparently, and making a healthy profit into the bargain.’

‘No wonder he can afford to pay Corinne Black five hundred quid for a screw. Right, we can cross him off the list.’

W
hen Kate Ebdon and I arrived at Golders Green Crematorium on Wednesday morning it had begun to snow hard again, and with it came a chill wind.

‘I’m very pleased you ordered me to stay in the car, guv,’ said Dave, somewhat smugly.

Kate leaned across and whispered a few obscene suggestions in his ear.

‘Certainly, ma’am,’ said Dave, and laughed. ‘Now, or later?’

Kate could always be relied upon to dress as the occasion demanded. Her appearances at the Old Bailey would see her attired in a smart two-piece suit, with discreet gold earrings and hair carefully coiffed. This morning she was wearing the same ensemble, together with her fur Cossack hat, a knee-length double-breasted camel overcoat with a large collar, high boots and a black umbrella that she opened as we left the car. It was at this point that I realized I had omitted to bring that essential piece of equipment with me. But, as Gail frequently and sarcastically pointed out, I’m a man. I sighed and turned up the collar of my overcoat.

There were a number of cars in the crematorium parking area. Among them I spotted a Rolls Royce, a Maserati, and at least two Porsches. Kate discreetly made a note of the index marks. There were more cars on the other side of Hoop Lane, immediately opposite the entrance, and I knew that Dave would be taking the details and would probably have a list of their registered keepers by the time we returned to the car.

The glitterati of the acting profession and its hangers-on had come to pay their respects. As was to be expected, there were the usual number of paparazzi, and a couple of television journalists with attendant cameramen.

There was already a sizeable crowd of mourners making their way towards the crematorium chapel. I recognized one well-known footballer, a chat show host and a couple of Z-list soap opera stars, although I doubt that their presence would have pleased Lancelot Foley. I’m sure he would have been happier to see some members of the Royal Shakespeare Company there, but they’d probably decided to give this event a miss.

But then, with all the unctuousness of a slug, I saw Fat Danny slithering towards me wearing his usual outfit: dirty mac and the battered, greasy trilby without which he was never to be seen.

Fat Danny has the dubious reputation of being the chief crime correspondent of possibly the worst tabloid in Britain, although I think he actually revels in such opprobrium. He has no scruples and certainly no dress sense, and I suspect that he only rarely takes a shower.

‘Hello, Mr Brock, Miss Ebdon.’

‘Don’t bother to raise your hat, Danny,’ said Kate sarcastically.

Danny laughed nervously.

‘What are you doing here, Danny?’ It was an unnecessary question; I knew why he was here. It wasn’t to pay his respects – he had no respect for anyone – but because he’d guessed that
I
would be here.

‘Have you come to make an arrest, Mr Brock?’ Danny asked in his usual wheedling tone.

‘Down Under, Danny, we cook journos like you on the barbie and then throw the remains to the roos,’ said Kate.

‘Oh, you do have a way with words, Miss Ebdon.’ Danny laughed nervously again; he’d never quite got the measure of Kate, but he was not alone in that. ‘But seriously, Mr Brock, have you got anything for me? I mean, you must have something. You’re bound to be pulling out all the stops for a big case like this one.’

‘Danny,’ I said, ‘this case is no different from any of the others. It doesn’t matter who the victim is; we devote all our abilities to finding the killer.’

‘Although we might not try too hard if you were the victim, Danny,’ said Kate. ‘Anyway, it would take forever to wade through the list of your known enemies.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘I suppose you were responsible for that appalling headline in that rag you have the temerity to call a newspaper,’ I said.

The headline in question had proclaimed: LANCELOT FOLEY MURDERED IN LONDON STREET. Beneath it in a smaller typeface was the tasteless comment:
Famous Actor Exits Stage Left – For Good!

‘Yeah, that was mine. You’ve got to have something that’ll get the punters to buy the bloody rag.’ Fat Danny was unapologetic and unrepentant.

‘I thought it was your style, Danny, but I notice you didn’t have the guts to put your name to it. Now, I have a barbecue to attend, so make yourself scarce before I nick you for obstructing police. And for writing bad copy. Oh, and another thing: I should go out the back way, if I were you.’

‘Why’s that, Mr Brock?’

‘Because Sergeant Poole is at the front, and he’s in a very bad mood today.’

We stood aside, along with the last of the stragglers, as the hearse bearing Lancelot Foley’s mortal remains nosed its way towards the chapel. The coffin was covered in flowers, in the centre of which was the BAFTA award he had won a few years previously. I assumed that someone would have the sense to retrieve it before the coffin disappeared into the furnace.

Kate and I waited until most of the mourners had traipsed into the chapel, and then followed at a discreet distance.

We stood at the very back of the congregation. I spotted Debra Foley and Jane Lawless seated as far away from each other as was possible, but there was no sign of Sally Warner, who, I supposed, had wisely decided not to risk a confrontation with either Lancelot Foley’s widow or his final paramour. Also present were most of the cast of
The Importance of Being Earnest
. Sebastian Weaver was there, too, but sitting alone several rows back.

I noticed that no one was wearing obvious funeral attire; presumably, the shunning of mourning black was a theatrical thing. In the circumstances, it seemed that Kate and I were the only ones I thought to be fittingly dressed for a funeral.

As we waited for the coffin to disappear into the furnace, I reflected on my father’s funeral. Fred Brock had spent his whole working life as a motorman on the London Underground driving trainloads of indifferent commuters on varying sectors of the Northern Line between Morden and Edgware or High Barnet. Four weeks after his retirement he’d died of pulmonary emphysema, leaving my mother Sheila with nothing but a stack of bills and me with a bundle of porn magazines. He’d never been much of a churchgoer, but my mother had insisted on a decent Christian burial for the old boy. And so it had been: a church in Tooting, a congregation in black, a clergyman to speak the obsequies and a reception at a local pub. One of the bosses from the Underground had been there, along with several of Fred’s former colleagues, and a representative of the National Union of Railwaymen.

What a contrast with today’s proceedings. Many of those present seemed to be regarding the whole affair as a jolly and were, no doubt, looking forward to the wake, where they could drink themselves senseless at someone else’s expense.

Suddenly, I realized that it was all over. There had been no eulogy, no words extolling the late Lancelot Foley’s artistic talent or attributes. The coffin and its contents had been converted into ashes, and that was that.

Kate and I hastened back to the car whence we could keep watch on the departing congregation. Most got into cars and drove away, but there were one or two souls who set out on the five-minute walk to Golders Green Underground station.

Almost last to emerge was Debra Foley, holding the BAFTA award. She was accompanied by a man of around her age, maybe a little older. He was on the short side, maybe five foot nine, and stockily built, and there was the indefinable air of a soldier about him. He and Debra appeared to be having a heated argument as they crossed the road, and then the man ushered Debra into a BMW, after which he got into the driver’s seat. I assumed that he had been too late to find a space in the crematorium’s car park, and I knew that he and Debra had not arrived together; she had been one of the first at the crematorium, and I’d seen her alighting from a taxi.

‘Shall I follow it, guv?’ asked Dave as the BMW moved away.

‘Yes, until I get details of the registration,’ I said, and telephoned the incident room. Within seconds Colin Wilberforce had consulted the Police National Computer and was able to tell me that the registered keeper was Robert Miles with an address in Harrow.

‘Another of Debra’s fancy men, guv?’ suggested Dave as I passed on this information.

‘Or another of her clients,’ said Kate. ‘They seemed to be having a bit of a blue, though.’

‘Miss Ebdon wishes you to know that they’re having an argument, Dave.’ I was becoming quite proficient at translating Australian. ‘OK, you can break it off now. They’ll only be going to the wake, wherever that’s being held. We’ll look into Mr Miles when we get back to the factory.’

Kate Ebdon had left her hat and coat in the office she shared with DI Len Driscoll, and exchanged her knee boots for high-heeled shoes before appearing in the incident room, but she was still in the elegant figure-hugging black suit and black tights that she had worn at Lancelot Foley’s cremation. She hadn’t released her shock of flame hair from its neat ponytail; neither had she removed her earrings.

The team were accustomed to seeing their lady inspector in jeans and a white shirt with her hair loose. They’d never before seen her attired in such a glamorous outfit. There was a stunned silence followed by a discreet round of applause.

‘Wow!’ exclaimed Charlie Flynn. ‘You look terrific, ma’am.’

‘You should wear that outfit more often, ma’am,’ said Tom Challis, his mouth open in admiration. ‘I reckon that’s what you Australians would call “fair dinkum”!’

Kate put her hands on her hips and pushed one leg forward in a classical pose. ‘Why don’t you bludgers stop yabbering and get on with what you’re supposed to be doing?’ she said, but I suspected that secretly she was pleased at the compliments, the more so as they came from fellow officers who usually tended to be sparing with remarks of admiration or even sympathy.

It brought to mind an incident years ago when I was a detective sergeant on the Flying Squad. One of the team had been shot during an abortive bank raid. When he returned to duty after three months’ sick leave, the DI looked up and asked him if he’d enjoyed his holiday. And that was all, but that’s the way coppers are.

‘I’ve been doing some background checks on Robert Miles, sir,’ said Colin Wilberforce, bringing us back to the matter in hand. ‘Charlie Flynn and I put our heads together and did a few searches. Robert Miles is Debra Foley’s brother. He’s two years older than she is, and he’s ex-army.’

‘Do we know which branch of the army he was in?’ I was thinking about the manner in which Foley had been murdered, and I wondered whether Miles had been a member of what is euphemistically dubbed ‘special forces’.

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘What does he do now?’

It was Flynn who replied. ‘We don’t know that either, guv, but I’m making further enquiries.’

‘Good. Let me know as soon as you get anything.’

But we didn’t have to wait for that information.

At three o’clock that afternoon, a man rang the incident room asking to speak to the officer in charge of the Lancelot Foley murder case, as he had important information. I told Wilberforce to put the call through to my office.

‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Brock. I understand you wish to speak to me.’

‘I’m pretty sure I know who killed Foley,’ said the man.

‘Are you able to give me a name?’

‘I’m not prepared to discuss this over the phone, Mr Brock. Walls have ears. Or, put more accurately, interested parties hack mobile phones. I’m out and about at the moment, but could you call at my place at precisely eight o’clock this evening? Incidentally, don’t mention my name over the phone. I noticed that your car followed mine as we left Golders Green this morning, and then broke away. Presumably, you’ve done a check on the police national computer, so I’m sure you know my address.’ And with that, the line went dead.

Colin Wilberforce put his head round the door. ‘I did a check on that call, sir. It was an untraceable mobile.’

‘I thought it would be, Colin. But thanks anyway.’

For a moment or two I sat thinking about the call. I was in no doubt that it was Robert Miles to whom I had been speaking, even though he had been very covert in our short conversation, particularly about revealing his identity. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered about his military background. It was fairly plain that he had been trained to a higher standard than most soldiers and had learned about the art of survival in all its forms. And possibly how to break a man’s neck.

But then another thought occurred to me. Could Miles actually be the murderer, and was he luring me into a trap? I didn’t think he’d have had any qualms about murdering his brother-in-law if the price was right. The apparent ruthlessness with which Foley had been killed led me to believe that his killer would stop at nothing to avoid capture, and I was sufficient of a realist to believe that he’d kill a police officer without a second thought. After all, a murderer can only serve
one
life sentence, no matter how many of them he receives.

I decided to take no chances and sent for Dave Poole, Charlie Flynn and Tom Challis. I related the gist of my conversation with Miles and told them of my concern that it might be a set-up.

‘Dave, you’ll come with me,’ I said, ‘and Charlie and Tom will follow in a separate car. And I want you tooled up.’

Now came the difficult part: I had to get the commander’s authority for the issue of firearms. Reluctantly, I made my way to his office.

‘Ah, Mr Brock.’ The commander set aside the file he was reading with, I imagined, the same degree of reluctance that I had approached him to seek his permission to draw weapons. ‘Is there some progress?’

I told the commander about the phone call from Miles without elaborating; otherwise he’d offer me advice about matters of which he knew very little. Right now, I was in no mood for one of his ill-informed little homilies on crime detection.

‘In the circumstances I think it would be wise if we were to carry firearms, sir.’

Predictably, the commander pursed his lips. ‘D’you think that’s absolutely necessary, Mr Brock?’ He gave me the sort of look that implied it wasn’t too late for me to change my mind.