Gunrunner (26 page)

‘Yes, go on.’ Kate was writing very quickly now.

‘Kerry told me that she’d been seeing Erica for some time, but had broken up with her. It wasn’t long before Kerry and I became very close; in fact, we were in love with each other.’ The words tumbled out as Charlie breathlessly continued her narrative. ‘She told me that she had let Erica go, and was leaving her husband – Nick, I think his name was – and that she wanted shot of the business she was running. Clearing the decks is what she called it. She said she wanted me to leave the army and set up home with her in the south of France, away from all the hustle and bustle of London and its God-awful weather. She described the villa she owned in St-Tropez; it all sounded idyllic. She said there was a swimming pool there, too.’ She paused and gazed wistfully into the middle distance. ‘Too bloody good to be true, if I’d thought about it.’

That was interesting
, I thought. St-Tropez was less than two hours’ drive to Marcel Lebrun’s base at St-Circe. But at the time that Kerry Trucking’s solicitor had mentioned the location of the villa, I wasn’t aware that Lebrun’s winery and illegal armoury were that close. However, that was probably irrelevant.

‘A bit slower, Charlie, please,’ said Kate, hurrying to keep up with the woman’s torrent of words.

‘Kerry told me that she was going to leave me everything in her will, but as she was young and fit I didn’t pay much attention to that. More to the point, she said that she’d pay two thousand pounds a month into my bank account.’ Charlie paused. ‘But that never came about either. Then one night, I bumped into Erica Foster in the same club, and she said she knew I was sleeping with Kerry. But she went on to say that she was still sleeping with her too.’

‘“. . . still sleeping with her too”,’ repeated Kate slowly, as she continued to record Charlie’s statement.

‘I had a hell of a row with Erica about it – in fact, we almost came to blows – and I told her that she should leave Kerry alone. I told her that Kerry belonged to me now, and that we were lovers, and that we were going to live together in the south of France once Kerry had left her husband. And I also told Erica that Kerry was leaving me everything in her will.’ Charlie looked up at the high window of the interview room, an expression of betrayal on her face.

‘Hang on a tick,’ said Kate, her pen rapidly recording the last sentence.

‘It was then that I found out the truth about Kerry,’ Pollard went on, looking back at Kate once more. ‘Erica laughed, and told me not to be a little fool. She said that Kerry had also promised to leave
her
everything in her will, and that she’d met another woman at the club who’d known Kerry before either of us had met her, and she’d been told the same thing. More fool me to have believed that damned woman.’

‘Please try not to go so fast, Charlie,’ said Kate, who was having some difficulty with keeping up.

Charlie waited until Kate finished writing and had looked up again.

‘It was then that the blindingly obvious hit me, and I realized that Kerry was using us, Erica and me, and probably a few others, too; especially the other girl who Erica had mentioned. She didn’t give a damn who she upset so long as
she
got what she wanted. And she set me up to take the fall for her gunrunning business. After that, Erica and I became close, and she moved in with me.’ There was a long pause while Charlie seemed to give great thought to what she was going say next. ‘We came to the conclusion, Erica and me, that one or other of us was going to benefit from Kerry’s will, and we decided that whichever way it was, we’d share it.’

Although Charlie had provided us with a motive, I thought that she would hold back from actually admitting to the murder, but, to my surprise, she didn’t.

‘Kerry had told me that she was going to New York with her husband for one last time, and that while she was there she’d tell him that she was finishing with him, and was going to make a life with me.’ Charlie had started repeating herself now. ‘Well, that didn’t ring true. If she was going to leave her husband, why go to New York with him? Why not dump him on this side of the pond? Anyway, I got her to tell me which flight she was on and when she’d be at the airport. And I asked her when she’d be coming back so that I could meet her.’

‘Slow down a minute,’ said Kate, as she rapidly recorded the last of Charlie’s sentences.

‘It was easy.’ Charlie waited until Kate had lifted her pen, and then continued. ‘Erica and I drove to the airport and waited in Wayfarer Road until Kerry went past in her car, and then we followed her into the car park. I’m a good driver,’ she said, ‘I do it for a living. Kerry was surprised when I pulled up beside where she’d parked, and I think she was shocked to see Erica with me when we got into her car. I sat in the passenger seat next to her, and Erica got in the back. We were determined to have it out with her, and I asked her which one of us she was in love with. She just laughed and told us both not to be silly little cows, and that it was just a fling we’d had. Then she said she wasn’t really going to leave her husband. I saw red at that, and I pulled out my bayonet and stabbed her. And she bloody deserved it, setting me up to take the fall for her gunrunning,’ she said vehemently. ‘Then Erica and I went home to Bethnal Green and opened a bottle of champagne.’

Even for a case-hardened detective like me, that sounded pretty cold-blooded. Charlie Pollard might be claiming that her murder of Kerry Hammond was a
crime passionnel
, but her condemnation of Kerry for setting her up tended to negate that. Furthermore, the fact that she had taken a bayonet with her when she was going to meet Kerry implied a premeditated act of violence. And that, I thought, would be good enough to sway even the most sceptical of juries.

There was one thing that didn’t seem right about all this. Charlie Pollard claimed that she had been sitting beside Kerry when she stabbed her, and we knew that she had been stabbed several times. So, how did she do it when she was sitting in the passenger seat?

But Charlie Pollard provided the answer when she took Kate’s pen to sign her statement.
She signed it
with her left hand
. And we knew she was strong; the major had told us she was a champion swimmer.

We left it at that, and I told the custody sergeant to return Charlie Pollard to her cell pending our interview with Erica Foster.

‘Get someone to photocopy that statement as quickly as possible, Kate,’ I said, ‘and then we’ll tackle Erica.’

‘By the way, guv,’ said Kate, ‘there’s no scientific evidence to put Erica Foster in Kerry’s car, or even that she was at the airport at all.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I half suspected that, although the lack of trace evidence doesn’t necessarily mean that she
wasn’t
in the car. Anyway, it is winter and she was probably wearing gloves.’

Erica Foster had been wise enough to ask for the duty solicitor to be present. ‘It’s nine o’clock, Chief Inspector,’ he said, as we entered the same interview room where we had earlier spoken to Charlie Pollard. ‘I would suggest that it’s a little late to start questioning my client. The guidelines in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act—’

‘I’m well aware of the PACE guidelines,’ I said, interrupting him, ‘but all I intend to do now is to serve a statement on Miss Foster. Charlie Pollard has made this statement admitting to the murder of Mrs Kerry Hammond. It also implicates your client in that murder, but I’ve no intention of interviewing Miss Foster at this stage, unless she wishes it.’

‘Very well.’ The solicitor opened his briefcase and took out a legal pad. He placed a fountain pen on the pad and spent a few moments polishing his spectacles with a pocket handkerchief. That little charade completed, he sat back with an air of expectancy. It was a typical lawyer’s ploy, and one that had been tried on me many times before, but he was wasting his time.

Kate handed Erica Foster a copy of Charlie’s statement, and gave another one to the solicitor. A quarter of an hour passed while they each read Charlie’s damning allegation. And then they read it again.

Eventually, Erica Foster tossed the statement aside and looked up. ‘This is absolute rubbish,’ she protested. ‘I was nowhere near Heathrow Airport on Christmas Eve. Why on earth is Charlie trying to drag me into this?’ She sounded genuinely crestfallen that her lover should have turned traitor on her. ‘This bit about the will is nonsense though. Kerry said nothing about leaving her estate to me, but I wouldn’t have believed her if she had said it. I suppose this whole statement is really about Charlie getting back at me because I’d carried on seeing Kerry after Charlie took up with her.’

‘So, if you were not at the airport, Miss Foster, where were you on Christmas Eve?’ I asked.

‘Charlie and I had arranged to go to a Christmas fancy dress party at the lesbian club near Tottenham Court Road that evening, but at the last minute Charlie cried off. She said she wasn’t feeling well and was going to bed, so I went on my own.’

‘What time did you leave Bethnal Green?’

Erica thought about that for a moment or two. ‘It must’ve been about twelve o’clock, I suppose. Charlie and I had arranged to have lunch with a friend of ours.’

‘Who was that?’ asked Kate.

‘Sally Hyde. She’s got a flat in Limehouse.’

‘What’s her address?’

‘Six Bugle Street, flat four,’ said Erica promptly.

‘And Sally Hyde will be able to verify your story, will she?’

‘Eventually,’ said Erica. ‘She went on holiday to Thailand straight after Christmas. She won’t be back until the end of January. The three of us were going to share a taxi and go on from Limehouse to Tottenham Court Road, but in the event it finished up just being Sally and I who went.’

‘What time did you get to this fancy dress party?’

‘About six, I suppose. We didn’t leave Limehouse until around five, perhaps a little later. It was a boozy lunch, you see,’ said Erica with a shy smile, ‘and then we showered to sober up and changed into our costumes. Yes, it must’ve been about six by the time we got to the club.’

‘Is there someone at this club who can verify your story, Miss Foster?’ I asked.

Erica laughed. ‘About fifty or sixty of the girls who were there, I should think. The party went on all night, but I left at about eleven o’clock and got a cab back to Bethnal Green.’ She paused. ‘I suppose I was lucky to get one at that time of night on Christmas Eve,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘The driver said he was on his way home, but when I said I wanted to go to Bethnal Green, he said he lived out that way and was prepared to take me. I certainly didn’t fancy walking five miles in a silly costume, high heels, fishnets and a short duffle coat.’

‘Have you any idea where Miss Pollard was during this time, Miss Foster?’ asked Kate.

‘I’d assumed she was at home in Argus Road, but now you tell me that she was at Heathrow. When I left, she’d said she was going to bed, and when I got home that’s where she was. But she seemed to have recovered from whatever was wrong with her, because the moment I got in beside her, she started making love to me. Really wild, she was. Much wilder than I’d ever known her before.’

‘You didn’t share a bottle of champagne, then?’

‘Good God no! I’d had more than enough to drink by then.’

‘Well, Chief Inspector?’ The solicitor laid down his pen and raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘I shall admit Miss Foster to police bail while enquiries are made to verify her alibi.’

‘But it must be obvious to you that she wasn’t implicated in this affair.’ The lawyer assumed one of his best mystified expressions.

‘That might be your view,’ I said, ‘but I’m sure you understand that in the circumstance I can’t accept her word without corroboration.’

The solicitor gave a nod of defeat; he’d tried and failed. ‘Yes, I understand,’ he said.

‘There is one other thing, Miss Foster,’ I said, as Kate and I stood up to leave. ‘Charlie mentioned a woman that she said had also been promised that Kerry would leave everything to her. Said she was a former partner of Kerry’s and a friend of yours.’

‘What about her?’

‘Is it true?’

‘Well, it’s true that she’s a mutual friend of Kerry’s and mine. We’d met her at the club.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Donna Wilcox. But, as I said just now, Kerry said nothing about leaving me anything in her will, and I very much doubt that she said anything like it to Donna.’

Kate paused at the door. ‘When we first saw you, Miss Foster, ‘you said that you were an accountant. Where d’you work?’

Erica smiled. ‘I’m not really an accountant,’ she said, ‘but it sounds better than what I really do.

‘And that is?’

‘I work on the counter in a building society in the West End.’

NINETEEN

A
lthough not advertised as a lesbian club, it was obvious to anyone entering that those not of the ‘sisterhood’ would feel out of place. But as Kate Ebdon and Sheila Armitage had often visited such places in the course of duty, they were not too worried about that.

‘Hello, darlings,’ said a short-haired woman in a catsuit. ‘I haven’t seen you in here before.’

‘Just thank your lucky stars you haven’t,’ said Kate. ‘What’s your name?’

‘You can call me Kitten. Everyone does.’ She placed her hands on her hips, pushed out a leg and pouted in what she believed to be a fetching manner.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Kate, producing her warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Ebdon. What’s your real name?’

‘Jill Clark,’ said Kitten. There was a hint of regret at having to admit to so prosaic a name.

‘Is there anyone here who knows Erica Foster?’ asked Kate, addressing the group of women who by now had gathered around her.

‘I do,’ said a thin mousey-haired woman with tattooed arms. ‘In fact, most of us know her. Why? What’s she done?’

‘Nothing that need concern you,’ said Kate, ‘but can any of you tell me if she was here on Christmas Eve?’

‘Yes, she was,’ said the cat-suited one who’d called herself Kitten. ‘We had a fancy dress party, and Erica came in a sexy pirate’s outfit. Very revealing.’

‘That’s right, she was definitely here.’ said an overweight, but nevertheless rather voluptuous blonde, a statement to which several of the others added murmurs of assent.