The Chalon Heads (3 page)

T
hey made their way separately to Queen Anne’s Gate, Brock and Kathy by taxi, Starling by bus to St James’s Park and then on foot by a circuitous route until he had satisfied himself that he wasn’t being followed.

As their taxi made its way slowly through the hot afternoon streets, Brock became increasingly preoccupied and sombre. Eventually he rubbed fiercely at the beard on the side of his jaw and said, ‘Well, well, and I thought that was going to be a pleasant digression from the usual run of things.’

‘You’ve had dealings with Mr Starling before,’ Kathy prompted.

‘Very much so,’ Brock said heavily. ‘Must be eight or nine years ago, the last time I saw him. And I did very much hope it would be the last time, too. Who would have expected Sammy Starling to show his face again, after so long?’

‘A villain?’

‘He has been. He has a flair for business. Made quite a bit of money for himself.’ He stared grimly out of the cab window at the tourists snapping the sentries outside the Horse Guards, broiling inside their breastplates and helmets.

‘And who is Keller?’

Brock seemed about to answer her, then changed his mind. ‘No, you don’t want to know, Kathy. None of us needs this. This is not a case for us. The first thing is to get it properly assigned. When Sammy arrives at Queen Anne’s Gate, we’ll hand him over, wash our hands, and get on with our lives.’

He took the photograph of Starling and his wife at Cannes from his pocket. ‘Who the hell does he think he is? Aristotle Onassis?’ He turned back to the window, brooding.

The offices used by Brock’s section of Department SO1, Serious Crime Branch, occupied a row of terraces on the south side of Queen Anne’s Gate, several blocks away from the main building of New Scotland Yard, and one of a number of annexes that had overspilled into the surrounding district. For Brock and his team, the independence and relative isolation of the old building from the modern slab office block of the Yard were an asset, illustrated now by the anonymity with which Starling was able to come to them.

The building also had another characteristic, which appealed to its occupants, though not to the asset managers of the Central Property Branch. Originally a row of separate eighteenth-century townhouses, it had long ago been converted to offices, with openings formed through the original party walls to link the staircases and corridors of the former houses into a maze of interconnected passageways serving an eccentric mixture of rooms, whose odd sizes bore no relationship to the standard space allocations for headquarters’ staff.

They entered through one of the identical black front doors facing the street, and made their way to the office of Brock’s secretary, Dot. She took one look at Brock through her large tortoiseshell glasses and said, ‘Problem?’

‘Sammy Starling,’ he said. ‘Remember him?’ He seemed as if still not quite able to credit it.

‘Oh, no. He hasn’t surfaced again, has he?’

‘I’m very much afraid so. He’ll be arriving here shortly. See if you can get hold of Commander Sharpe for me, will you? Urgent matter.’

Dot picked up the phone, and a minute later transferred the call through to Brock in his office. While he talked behind his closed door, Kathy said, ‘Starling seems to have left a big impression, Dot. What did he do? He seemed rather innocuous to look at.’

‘I never met him in the flesh, but I remember his picture in the papers. Chinese, yes?’

Kathy nodded.

‘Yes, a sort of baby face, looked so innocent. Yet he caused so much trouble.’

‘How?’

‘He gave evidence against three corrupt officers in the Fraud Squad . . .’ Dot frowned, thinking. ‘But it was more complicated than that. I know it caused Brock a lot of grief. What’s he up to now?’

‘His wife’s been kidnapped, and he wants Brock to take the case on. Brock doesn’t want to touch it.’

‘I’ll bet.’ She looked down at the indicator light on her phone, bit her lip and crossed her fingers.

The light kept shining for another ten minutes. When it finally went off, Kathy and Dot waited for Brock to open his door. Instead the phone rang. ‘Is Bren in the building, Dot?’ Brock asked.

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Get him and Kathy in here as quick as you can, will you?’

Kathy waited for DS Bren Gurney, a soft-spoken West Countryman, to appear and they went into Brock’s office together. He waved them to seats around a small table.

‘Sammy Starling,’ he began, face dark. ‘Remember his case, Bren?’

‘That was to do with the Fraud Squad, wasn’t it? Long time ago.’

‘Ten years. Sammy’s business dealings were being looked into by SO6. Just when it seemed that a case was coming together, Sammy turned the tables by providing evidence of corruption against three senior officers of the Fraud Squad, including the officer investigating him. This effectively undermined the evidence against Starling, and also led to the arrest of the three officers. Of the three, one committed suicide during their trial and one died in prison. The third, former DI Marty Keller, was released from prison three months ago.

‘Kathy and I had an unexpected meeting with Sammy earlier this afternoon. He claims that his young wife, Eva Starling, has been kidnapped. He also says that he’s afraid to come to the police in the normal way, because of bad feeling over his earlier case.’

Bren looked doubtful. ‘Oh, yes?’

‘Yes. I’ve just had a conversation with Commander Sharpe, requesting that he allocate the case to someone else. He disagreed.’

‘Were you involved with the earlier case?’ Kathy asked.

Brock nodded. ‘I was the officer who investigated Starling’s allegations against the three SO6 men. I was the one who arrested Keller, and the other two. Sharpe feels that gives me some priority in the present affair. I think . . .’ Brock looked away at the window ‘. . . I think he wants us to quarantine Sammy. Keep him to ourselves. I said I thought that was a mistake. Anyway, that’s how it stands. Sammy should be here in a minute. Just don’t underestimate him, eh? He has this air of benign innocence, like a child. People have been misled by it. He’s tough and he’s bright.’

The phone went. Brock listened briefly and replied, ‘Bren will pick him up.’ He turned to them. ‘He’s here.’

‘I’ll send for the files.’ Kathy said.

‘Yes, do that. Mind you, there’ll be nothing on Sammy for years now.’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘Look, if you want to get to know about Sammy Starling, you should speak to someone who’s made a lifetime study of him. Criminal Intelligence did quite a bit of work at one time. Peter White, former DCI. You might speak to him.’

‘Former DCI?’

‘Yes. Retired a few years ago.’

‘Oh. Won’t he be a bit out of touch? Perhaps I’d be better to give SO11 a call.’

‘It might be best for us to keep this to ourselves at present, Kathy, as far as possible. Sammy’s nervousness about contacting us isn’t entirely paranoia, especially if this has something to do with Keller. Actually, you’d be doing me a favour talking to old Peter. I’d like to know how he is. Haven’t seen him for ages.’

There was something about the way Brock said this that made Kathy pause. ‘Wouldn’t you rather see him yourself?’ she said, probing gently.

Brock turned to gather a file from his desk. ‘Maybe another time. We had a slight falling out. Nothing serious.’

Bren introduced himself to Starling at the front desk. As he towered over the visitor, taking his cautious handshake, his impression was of a small, unobtrusive man anxious to avoid trouble, but that meant nothing: Bren had known plenty of diminutive, obliging people who caused untold grief, his wife’s mother chief among them. ‘They’re waiting for you upstairs, Mr Starling. I’ll lead the way. It’s a bit confusing.’

Starling followed his guide as he disappeared along a corridor, up a flight of stairs, around a corner, down a few steps, up a few more, and round another corner, bringing him eventually to a panelled door. He tapped and opened it, indicating for Starling to enter. Brock, Kathy and Dot were seated at a long conference table. At the far end of the room a tall sash window gave a view into a tiny walled courtyard, in which a few ferns struggled for life.

Brock introduced his secretary, who gave Starling a small smile, examining him with considerable interest.

‘It’s private here, Sammy,’ Brock said. ‘We’ll conduct a preliminary interview, then see what we can do. Take a seat.’

Starling and Bren took the chairs offered, and Brock pressed the button on a tape-recorder on the table in front of him. ‘Dot will set up the paperwork in such a way that the details of the operation are kept as confidential as possible, Sammy. But, clearly, several people will have to know and approve.

‘Now, tell me what you know about Keller. Did he write to you from prison? Threaten you in any way?’

Starling shook his head. ‘No. All I knew I read in the papers. After Stringer died, it was reported that Keller had been moved up to the maximum security block at Durham, and I heard no more about him. I put him out of my mind, forgot that he existed.’

Brock opened the file in front of him. ‘Martin Arthur Keller. Former Detective Inspector in Department SO6, Fraud Squad. Sentenced at the Old Bailey to thirteen years for perjury, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, the taking of a bribe, assault on a witness, and attempted murder. Released on April the twenty-third this year after serving eight years and six months. Now aged forty-five. He had a wife, who divorced him two years into his sentence. No children. Next of kin given as a brother, Barney Keller, painter and decorator, of Ealing, West London.’

Brock looked closely at Starling. ‘The attempted murder charge was what clinched it, wasn’t it, Sammy? And you were the intended victim.’

Starling shuddered. ‘I still can’t take the tube, Mr Brock. Just the thought of those tunnels, turning a corner and seeing him again, standing there waiting for me . . .’

‘So it’s natural that you’d immediately think of him, especially with him having just been released. But is there anything more than that?’

‘A couple of months ago I got this phone call from someone. Male voice, didn’t say who he was. Wanted to tell me that Keller was out of jail. Thought I’d like to know.’

‘Did the call seem threatening to you? Or could it have been a friend? Someone from the old days, perhaps, who’d heard that Keller was out.’

‘I don’t know. It was over in a few seconds. But I didn’t recognise the voice, and if it had been a friend, why wouldn’t they have said who they were? And the call came to my private line at home, which is ex-directory.’

‘So you felt threatened by it. What did you do?’

‘Nothing at first. I just shrugged it off. Keller had been guilty, and he’d done his time. End of story. What was it to me, now? It had all happened so long ago.’

Starling paused, blank face staring at the blank wall as if trying to picture something, and they waited for him to go on.

‘What changed your mind, then?’

‘A few days later I woke up in the middle of the night. The way you do . . . do you know what I mean?’ He looked at Brock, willing him to understand. Kathy, studying his face, felt she was beginning to read its subtle inflections, catching the swift little shadows, barely detectable, that turned the bland circle from fear to hope, amusement to sadness. ‘When you’ve pushed something you don’t want to think about to the back of your mind. And then, suddenly, you wake up, and there it is, big and real, in flashing lights? I thought about the phone call, and I began to think about Keller, and how he’d look at things.

‘Ten years ago he was a young, ambitious copper, a favourite with his bosses, Stringer and Harley, obviously heading for the top. He had a lovely wife, nice house, a bit of money in the bank. Whereas I was a man without a future, not long widowed, facing a stretch in gaol.

‘Ten years later, it’s him that’s coming out of prison. It’s him that’s lost everything, his wife, his house, his money. He has no future. And in the meantime I’ve been reborn. I’m a successful businessman. I’ve got a beautiful young wife. I live in a big house.’

Starling took a deep breath, and Kathy picked up a wheeze—a summer cold, perhaps, or hay fever, asthma. His smooth forehead was gleaming with a film of sweat, more than when he’d come in, although it was much cooler in here than outside in the street.

‘I lay awake for a long time, thinking about this. It was as if I could see into his mind—as if his thoughts were coming direct to me, through the darkness, thoughts that he’d had more than eight prison years to think. I was responsible, and he would want me to pay, no question of that. And it scared the shit out of me, I tell you.’

‘You were always such a cool customer, Sammy,’ Brock said quietly. ‘Never one to panic.’

‘Yeah, well . . .’ Starling took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped the sweat away from his eyelids. ‘We get old. And maybe now I got something to panic about.’

Kathy noticed that his hand had a tremor.

‘So what did you do?’

‘First I spent a lot of money upgrading the security on the house and the flat. Then I arranged to find out what Keller got up to when he came out.’

‘How did you do that?’

‘There’s a bloke I’ve used before, known him for years. Private investigator. I got him to find Keller and watch him, day and night.’

‘And what did he do?’

‘He went to Ealing, where his brother lives. Barney had rented a room for him, and given him a job with his firm, painting and decorating.’

‘Who’s this investigator of yours?’ Brock asked.

Starling hesitated. ‘He doesn’t know about the kidnapping, Mr Brock. And he doesn’t need to.’

‘Fair enough. What’s his name?’

‘Sometimes his methods are a bit . . . cost effective.’

‘Nice way of putting it, Sammy. We all approve of cost effectiveness. One of the cardinal virtues these days. What’s his name?’

‘Ronnie Wilkes.’

‘So Ronnie Wilkes did what? Searched Keller’s room while he was out painting and decorating?’ Starling nodded. ‘And found what?’

‘Nothing,’ Starling said.

‘No newspaper clippings of your wedding to Eva? No address book with your entry? No prison diary?’