A Conflict of Interests (3 page)

There were, Coghill thought, only two possible conclusions to be drawn from that; either the New King's Road branch was a positive gold mine or else Karen Whitfield had had another source of income. Leaving the phone booth, he made his way to Belvedere Grove, got into the Volvo and drove out to Fulham.

Leese paid off the taxi, walked up the flight of steps by the garage and let himself into his mews flat off Cadogan Square. The telephone bill, a circular and a statement from Barclays Bank had arrived in his absence and were lying on the doormat. Picking them up, he went through the hall, dumped his briefcase and overnight bag in the bedroom and then went into the living room to fix himself a drink and listen to the messages on the answering machine. There was only one, and Karen Whitfield left him in no doubt that he was required to call her back as soon as possible.

Leese figured she could only have phoned him an hour or so ago; had Karen tried to reach him yesterday or the day before, there would have been several other messages from her on the tape. For a few heady moments he toyed with the idea of ignoring her instructions but, on reflection, decided it would be stupid to antagonize her, and dangerous too. If she had a mind to, Karen could ruin him; there was enough incriminating evidence locked away in a safety-deposit box at the London branch of the First National Bank of America to do just that.

Karen hadn't left a number where she could be contacted but, this being a Wednesday, Leese knew that she would have gone to Fulham. Leaving his gin and tonic on the low coffee table, he picked up the phone to call the boutique; as he did so, somebody rang the front doorbell. Grim-faced, he replaced the receiver and went out into the hall, half-expecting to find her on the doorstep.

His visitor was an amiable-looking man in a light gray suit. He was about five foot nine, had hazel-colored eyes, brown hair, a round, almost cherublike face and an infectious smile.

"Mr. Leese?" A warrant card appeared briefly in the palm of his left hand. "I'm Detective Sergeant Patterson." His eyes creased to emphasize the friendly smile. "I'm glad I caught you this time."

"Caught?" Leese swallowed nervously.

"I called on you twice yesterday, but there was no reply."

"I was away in Amsterdam," Leese said. "I've only just this minute returned."

"Then you won't have heard that two of the flats were broken into on Monday night?"

"No." He peered back over his shoulder. "My place hasn't been touched."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that, sir." Patterson moved a pace nearer. "This burglar was a real artist. He knew exactly what he wanted and didn't leave any mess behind him. He could have cleaned out your safe without you knowing it."

"Where did you get the idea that I had a safe, Sergeant?"

"I thought all these mews flats had one. Of course, I can understand why you have to be a bit cagey about it."

"You can?" Leese said in a hollow voice.

"Well, it's a simple matter of security, isn't it, sir?"

"I suppose it is, Sergeant."

"Mind if I come in?" Patterson moved into the hall and closed the door behind him. "It will save us both a lot of time if you check the contents of your safe while I'm in the neighborhood."

"I hardly think that's necessary," Leese said, then froze, his eyes riveted on the small snub-nosed revolver pointed at his stomach.

"A point twenty-two Iver Johnson," Patterson calmly informed him. "It makes a noise about as loud as a firecracker, but it's very lethal."

"Jesus."

"There's no need to be alarmed, Mr. Leese. It won't go off, provided I get a little cooperation from you." Patterson jabbed the barrel under Leese's breastbone, hard enough to wind him. "You want to lead the way?" he invited.

Leese nodded, turned slowly about and walked into the living room. His mouth had suddenly gone bone-dry and his legs felt as though they no longer belonged to him.

"I'm told the safe is behind that Shepherd print above the fireplace," Patterson said.

"It's not a print." The denial was instinctive and smacked of vanity.

"My mistake. I should have guessed you'd own an original. What did it cost you? Twenty grand?"

"Something like that."

Leese unhooked the painting and rested it carefully against the nearest armchair. For a few blank seconds he couldn't remember the combination; then it came to him, 22–5–39, the date of his birth. Hands shaking, he went through the sequence, spinning the dial to make five complete turns in a clockwise direction until the opening number was in line with the mark. There then followed four revolutions anticlockwise to 5, three forward to 39, and two back to zero. The pattern finally completed, he moved the dial forward again to withdraw the bolt bar and, yanking the handle down, opened the safe.

"You can take a rest now," Patterson told him cheerfully. "Face down on the carpet, both hands behind your back."

He stepped well clear. Leese was a good two inches taller and had a weight advantage of at least twenty pounds. Even though he could see the older man was about ready to wet himself, Patterson wasn't about to take any chances.

"Have you got a briefcase?"

"What?" Leese twisted his head around and looked up at him, mouth slack and breathing heavily.

"A briefcase."

"There's one in the bedroom."

"Good." Patterson moved to the sofa and picked up a cushion. "Better put this under your head," he said. "I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

"I'm not."

"No arguments, I know what's best, Mr. Leese."

Patterson bent over him, rammed a knee into his spine and held the cushion over his head. Leese made a faint mewling sound like that of a lost kitten; then Patterson squeezed the trigger and emptied three chambers into Leese's skull, the cushion effectively muzzling the crack of each shot. As he stood up, a slowly widening pool of urine seeped across the Indian carpet and an unpleasant smell of excreta rose in the air.

Patterson slipped the revolver into his hip holster, dug a pair of cotton gloves out of his jacket pockets and put them on. That done, he went into the bedroom, emptied the contents of the briefcase onto the divan and returned to the living room to clean out the safe.

The video cassettes were stacked one on top of the other, their numbered spines toward him. Working swiftly, he packed all fourteen of them into the briefcase, closed the safe and rehung the painting.

There remained one final chore, the magnetized electronic bug that had been fixed to the metal base of the answering machine. Tucking the briefcase under his arm, Patterson detached the listening device and slipped it into his pocket. Then, still ice-cool, he let himself out of the flat, closed the door behind him and deftly removed his gloves before going down the staircase to the cobbled mews below.

3.

Franklin picked up his clipboard and pretended to study the notes he'd made while Coghill had been briefing him. Had Detective Superintendent Bert Kingman been in charge of the Whitfield case, he would have stayed put at the Yard and left him to get on with the job, but Kingman was away on a package tour to Majorca and that made a difference. For all that Coghill was a highflyer and would probably make assistant commissioner one day, he had never led a major investigation before, and from the moment the initial flash report had come through on the teleprinter, this factor had been uppermost in Franklin's mind.

The way Franklin saw it, he could do one of two things: either recall Kingman from leave or go to the assistant commissioner in charge of C Department and request him to appoint a senior officer from the Regional Crime Squad to lead the inquiry. At the same time, he hoped Coghill would make things easier for him by indicating that he would welcome either alternative. Yet, despite some pretty broad hints, this hadn't happened so far, which in retrospect didn't altogether surprise him.

Coghill was ambitious, resourceful, highly intelligent and well-educated. He'd read law at Nottingham University, got a good second-class honors degree, then joined the Metropolitan Police Force. Within eighteen months, he'd passed the written examination to sergeant and four years ago, at the age of twenty-eight, had been promoted to inspector. His service to date had been more or less evenly divided between the uniformed branch and CID, with a slight bias in favor of the latter. As a detective constable he'd cut his teeth with the Obscene Publications Squad, and on his first promotion had done a stint with Serious Crimes. He had a good record and was tough in every sense of the word, both physically and mentally. Every confidential report that had been written about Coghill had stressed his complete dedication to the force, and Franklin believed it was this single-mindedness that had led to the breakup of his marriage.

"Trevor Whitfield," he said, breaking a long silence. "What time is he expected to arrive at Heathrow?"

"Eighteen-fifteen hours," said Coghill. "Travelways has been in touch with him, and Draycott, their personnel manager, will meet Whitfield at the airport along with Sergeant Mace and myself. I've also contacted the Grange School and briefed the headmaster. In the event that Whitfield's flight is delayed for any reason, he'll break the news to his stepson. We don't want the boy learning about his mother's death from the media."

"Too right."

"Provided there are no snags, I'll merely introduce myself to Whitfield and leave Mace to wetnurse him while I handle the press briefing at seven-thirty. Once that's out of the way, we can get a preliminary statement from him; then, depending on what he tells us, we can give his tail a real twisting first thing tomorrow. Of course, it's possible Whitfield may be able to explain where the mysterious cash input to Karen's Boutiques Limited came from."

"But you think it unlikely?" Franklin suggested.

"He may not want to if there was any funny business involved." Coghill shrugged. "We've no proof, but every instinct tells me the company was just a front. One thing's certain; the additional income hasn't been earned through the boutique in Fulham. Their takings are about on a par with the Wimbledon branch."

"That's something the Fraud Squad can look at, Tom." Franklin placed the clipboard to one side, leaned back in the chair and clasped both hands behind his neck. "You can then concentrate on Mr. Oliver Leese. It could be he was the last person to see Karen Whitfield alive."

"If the phone call June Strachey overheard was from him and if we can prove he was in Wimbledon yesterday." They were two big ifs and it did no harm to remind Franklin that it was only an assumption. "Up to now, we're not having much luck in that direction," Coghill went on. "None of the neighbors remember seeing Karen Whitfield again after she left for work. I'm hoping somebody will come forward when her photograph appears on TV and in tomorrow's newspapers."

"How far are you going to take the press into your confidence?"

"All the way. I intend to give them the facts as we know them."

"You'll be faced with a barrage of questions."

"It would be a turn-up for the book if I wasn't," Coghill said laconically. "The victim was a very attractive woman and they'll want to give their readers all the usual trivia. That's another reason why I'm planning to meet Trevor Whitfield at the airport."

"They may also ask if we've any ideas about a possible motive," Franklin warned.

"If they do, I'll say it's early days yet and we're keeping an open mind."

"And have you?"

"What? An open mind?" Coghill faced the older man. "I like to think so," he said.

It was a long way from the truth and they both knew it. The circumstances were such that anybody directly involved in the investigation was bound, even at this stage, to have his own pet theory about a motive.

"Sex and sadism seem to go hand in hand for some couples, Tom."

"Yes."

"And sometimes they go a little too far and one of them ends up dead. In some cases, you may even find peripheral evidence which suggests the murder has been carefully premeditated, but more often than not, it's usually misleading." Franklin smiled briefly. "I suppose what I'm really saying is, keep it simple and don't go looking for complicated explanations. They invariably cloud the issue."

"Yes, sir."

In Coghill's view, there was nothing simple about this particular murder, but it was politic to agree with the area commander, especially as time was running on.

"I'm glad we see eye to eye, Tom." Franklin unclasped his hands and glanced at his wristwatch. "Bert would give you the same advice if he were here."

"Are you going to recall Superintendent Kingman from leave?"

"I won't have to," Franklin lied. "You know Bert, he'll be on the first plane out of Majorca the minute he sees the headlines in the overseas edition
of The Times
."

"Yes, I suppose that will be his immediate reaction," Coghill said wryly.

"Too right." Franklin bared his teeth in a gleaming smile. "Do you have any other questions?" he asked.

"Not at the moment."

"Good. Let me know what you make of Whitfield."

Coghill agreed to do that, then left the office and went downstairs to the security compound behind V District Headquarters where Mace was waiting for him in the Volvo.

Patterson turned off the Victoria Embankment into Northumberland Avenue and parked the rented Datsun on the left-hand side of the road, just short of the Metropole Building. Seven forty-eight: by now, Raschid al Jalud should be at Waterloo Station, hurrying through the concourse toward the bank of pay phones a few yards beyond the ticket office. He'd had the Libyan crisscrossing the town for close to an hour and he wasn't finished with him yet. Smiling to himself, Patterson got out of the Datsun and walked over to the railway arch and the cluster of phone booths near the Embankment Underground station. Entering the first one he came to, Patterson consulted the list of numbers he'd noted in his pocket diary, then lifted the receiver and dialed 834-1399. At Regent's Park and Tottenham Court Road, Jalud had been obliged to wait until the preselected booth became vacant, but this time contact was established at the first attempt.