A Conflict of Interests (5 page)

Patterson licked his lips. He would arrange a private viewing for Orlov and whet his appetite with Raschid al Jalud. That was the perfect sweetener and it might also buy him a little extra insurance. But first things first. Tomorrow he would change his identity and find an alternative safe house in London before Raschid decided to put a Libyan hit team onto him. Meantime, there were still the eight video cassettes he hadn't looked at yet and there was no telling what they might yield.

4.

Caroline Brooke was twenty-six, articulate, highly intelligent and blissfully unaware that she was in danger of becoming institutionalized. An army brat, she had been packed off to boarding school at the age of eleven, progressed to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, seven years later and, on the recommendation of her tutor, had been offered an appointment with DI5 one month after she had graduated with a first in mathematics. At Leconfield House, she was known as the Miss World of K Desk, an accurate if somewhat misleading description. Apart from the occasional theater or dinner date when she had nothing better to do, men did not figure prominently in her life. Terrorist groups and subversives were Caroline Brooke's all-consuming interest; first into the office, the last to leave, she rarely stopped thinking about them even when at home.

Every weekday, Caroline Brooke left her flat in Dolphin Square at seven forty-five and walked to Pimlico Underground station. Every morning she bought a copy of the
Daily Telegraph
from the newsagent in the entrance hall and read the main items during the short train journey to Green Park. Although Karen Whitfield was not listed in the DI5 card index, she recognized her face the moment she saw the picture on the front page and immediately knew where to find the connecting link. A phone call the previous evening from the surveillance team assigned to Raschid al Jalud triggered her photographic memory and minutes after arriving at the office, she obtained the relevant file from the central registry.

Raschid al Jalud was a kinsman by marriage of Colonel Qadhafi. Posted to London in July 1980 as a cultural attaché, he had come to the notice of DI5 four months later as a result of a tip-off from the SIS, whose overseas sources suggested the Libyan government had appointed him to liaise with and support the provisional IRA and other terrorist groups operating in Western Europe. Until his wife and children had joined him in May of the following year, Jalud had led a bachelor existence. During that time, he had visited an apartment on the fifth floor of Abercorn House in Maida Vale on a number of occasions. Unable to pinpoint exactly which flat he frequented, Surveillance had clandestinely photographed everybody entering or leaving the block of flats when he was known to be there. Among the collection retained in an envelope at the back of Jalud's file were three snapshots of Karen Whitfield.

Gratified that her memory for faces hadn't let her down, Caroline Brooke sent for the duty officer's log and read the verbatim report submitted by the surveillance team assigned to Jalud. They had shadowed the Libyan from his terraced house in Regent's Park to Tottenham Court Road and Waterloo Station, before losing him near the Metropole Building in Northumberland Avenue. The subject who'd met Jalud outside the Playhouse Theatre and driven off with him in a Datsun was described as male Caucasian, five foot nine, weight approximately 165 pounds, light brown hair, round face. There was one other piece of information; the linguists who'd analyzed the recording of a telephone conversation Jalud had had earlier that evening were convinced the caller either had a slight East Coast American accent or was a Canadian from Vancouver. Put together, it didn't amount to much, but she knew there was an equally vague description of a CIA dissident on the card index. A quick check persuaded her the unknown man could be Orville Patterson, sometimes known as Oswald Pemberton.

There remained the registration number of the Datsun — CVA 231Y. Locking the door of her office, she went down the corridor to room 28 and tapped out a request for information on the IBM computer. Twenty seconds later, the central vehicle licensing authority at Swansea came back with the information that the Datsun was owned by Rent-a-Car Limited of 285 Kilburn High Road.

Armed with this information, Caroline Brooke returned to her office and wrote a minute to her superior. It read:

I have reason to believe that Raschid al Jalud was acquainted with Karen Whitfield and may even have had relations with her before his wife joined him in London. If this assumption is correct, then the message Jalud received yesterday evening saying that the caller had resolved the matter satisfactorily, becomes much more sinister. I also believe that the man who subsequently met him outside the Playhouse Theatre could be Orville Patterson who left the CIA in November 1973 to go freelance, but this identification is very tentative. According to the
Daily Telegraph
, the officer in charge of the Whitfield investigation is Detective Inspector Coghill. There is no way of knowing whether he is yet aware that the deceased was acquainted with Jalud, but it would be a disaster from our viewpoint were he to pursue this possible line of inquiry. If Detective Inspector Coghill should ask to interview him, Jalud would undoubtedly be recalled and he is much more valuable to us here in London than cooling his heels in Tripoli. I therefore strongly recommend that we take such preventive action as is necessary to safeguard our interests.

Coghill removed his jacket, draped it over the back of the chair, then sat down next to Mace. Quainton and Whitfield faced him across the dining room table, an ill-matched pair and the most unlikely of friends. Quainton was overweight and overbearing; he looked old enough to be Whitfield's father and had acted as though he were from the moment they'd arrived at the house half an hour later than had been stipulated. There had been no apologies, no explanations, just a throwaway disclosure that apart from being a close friend of the family, he also happened to be Whitfield's solicitor. Behind his back, Mace had winked knowingly, as if to say I told you so.

"I realize this may be very distressing for you," Coghill began quietly, "but we need your help, Mr. Whitfield."

"My help?" Whitfield repeated and glanced sideways at Quainton.

"To establish a possible motive," Coghill informed him. "Of course, it's conceivable your wife could have been murdered by a pervert who gets his kicks from bondage and sadism, but the postmortem seems to have ruled that out. Doctor Harrison, the pathologist, is satisfied your wife was not sexually assaulted, and for my money, there's too much premeditation about the whole business. The killer was in possession of a small-caliber revolver and the clothesline he used to tie her up was brand new."

"We have a tumble-dryer," Whitfield said in a hollow voice.

"So we noticed." Coghill took out a pack of Silk Cut and lit a cigarette. "Did your wife have any enemies? Her first husband, for instance?"

"What?" Whitfield looked up, mouth agape.

"The headmaster of Grange School told me Darren was your stepson, so I naturally assumed your wife had been married before."

"Yes." Whitfield nodded several times. "His name was Cairns, Michael Cairns. They were divorced in 1972, eighteen months after Darren was born. I understand Cairns emigrated to New Zealand the following year."

It was all a little too pat for Coghill's liking. Yesterday evening, Whitfield had told him Karen was an only child and had no living relatives. Now, the one person who could have filled in some of the blank spaces in her life had conveniently disappeared to the other side of the world. He wondered how long Quainton had known her, but the solicitor wasn't volunteering any information.

"When did you first meet your wife, Mr. Whitfield?" he asked, taking a different tack.

"Sometime in July 1977. I'd just come down from university and had started work with a small travel agency near Marble Arch. I rented a room in Maida Vale in those days and Karen used to catch the same bus from the same bus stop. One day we said more than good morning to each other and things sort of took off from there." A hesitant smile flickered across Whitfield's face. "I proposed to her ten weeks later. Karen was five years older than me and at first she was a little bothered about the difference in our ages, but I finally talked her around."

Coghill could understand why she had hesitated. Trevor Whitfield was twenty-seven now, but still appeared immature and, although he was very good-looking, there was something rather effeminate about the long sweeping eyelashes and the way his curly brown hair was styled. He was, however, the sort of man who would appeal to the mothering instinct in some women.

"We were married at the registry office in Kilburn on Saturday, the tenth of September, and I moved into her flat at Abercorn House."

"Can we have the exact address?" Coghill asked.

"Yes, certainly. It was flat 52, Abercorn House, Abercorn Close, Maida Vale."

Mace repeated the address and wrote it down in his notebook.

"Then, four years ago you moved to Wimbledon?"

"That's right. Karen already owned a boutique in Fulham and was thinking of leasing another premises here, so the flat in Maida Vale was no longer convenient."

"Who did the conveyancing on this house?"

"I did," said Quainton. "I've represented Mrs. Whitfield since 1975, when she asked me to vet the terms of the contract for the shop in the New King's Road she proposed to rent. I later advised Karen to buy the property on a mortgage when the landlord offered to sell her the leasehold."

"How did she raise the deposit?"

"No problem," said Quainton. "Karen had five thousand pounds in her current account and a further twenty thousand invested with the Abbey National and Halifax Building Societies. I understand she inherited a large house in Tonbridge from her parents and sold the property at a considerable profit after it was converted into two self-contained flats."

"That was pretty smart of her," Coghill said.

Quainton stared at him, eyes cold as a fish. "Karen had a good head for business, Inspector. That's why she formed herself into a Limited Company."

"With how many directors?"

"Just two," Whitfield said, chipping in. "There are a hundred ordinary shares split eighty-twenty in Karen's favor." His expression became wistful. "Perhaps I should say there
were
a hundred ordinary shares."

"Oliver Leese?" Coghill said. "Where does he fit into the picture?"

"He's a freelance photographer. Karen always used him whenever she arranged a fashion show for her customers."

The explanation was a shade too glib, as though Whitfield had had forewarning of the question and had been told exactly what to say.

"That wasn't what I heard from June Strachey. She was under the impression that Leese was your wife's accountant."

"Really?" Whitfield glanced at his companion and frowned. "I can't think where she got that idea, can you, Stanley?"

"No," said Quainton. "I can only assume she must have got hold of the wrong end of the stick." A supercilious smile appeared on his full lips. "There hasn't been a fashion show for the Wimbledon boutique yet, Inspector, but I know Karen was thinking of holding one."

"I see." Coghill leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. "Do you know where we can reach Leese?" he asked.

"Oliver has a flat in Brompton Mews off Cadogan Square," said Whitfield. "I'm afraid I don't know his phone number offhand, but I could look it up for you. It's bound to be on one of his invoices upstairs."

"No need to go to all that trouble, Mr. Whitfield," Coghill told him. "My sergeant can get it from Directory Inquiries if you don't mind him using your phone."

"No, not at all."

Mace nodded, left the table and went out into the hall.

Quainton waited until he heard him lift the receiver off the hook, then said, "May one ask why you're so anxious to get in touch with Mr. Leese?"

"We've reason to believe he could be the last person to have seen Mrs. Whitfield alive. We know she tried to phone Leese on Tuesday morning and left a message with somebody asking him to call her back. According to Mrs. Strachey, the phone rang just before noon and Karen left the boutique a few minutes later."

"And?"

"We think she may have picked him up from the station and brought him back to the house." Coghill shrugged. "Of course, it's all supposition, but we have to start somewhere and you never know, somebody may remember seeing her at the station."

"Which one?" Whitfield asked.

"Both," said Coghill.

Karen's photograph was on display in the entrance to Wimbledon Park and Wimbledon, mounted on billboards with an arresting caption in block capitals which read: HAVE YOU SEEN this woman? Two detectives were also in attendance to draw the attention of passengers arriving and departing from either station to the notice boards. And four uniformed officers were making door-to-door inquiries, covering all the shops and private houses in the immediate neighborhood.

"It seems to me you're looking for a needle in a haystack," Quainton observed. "I realize thousands of people are flocking to Wimbledon for the tennis championships, but I would have thought you had a different crowd of spectators every day."

"You'd be surprised how many attend the whole fortnight. And another thing," Coghill reminded him, "you're overlooking the coverage we've had from the media. Millions of viewers will have seen Karen's photograph on TV last night and heard our appeal for information. She also made the front page of most newspapers this morning."

"I trust you've had an encouraging response?"

"Very encouraging."

In anticipation of the inflow, Coghill had had the GPO install a couple of emergency lines. By the time he and Mace had left Wimbledon Police Station, Detective Sergeant Ingleson, the officer in charge of the crime index, had already received twenty-eight phone calls, some of them from obvious hoaxers.

"The public can be very cooperative at times," Quainton said vaguely and lapsed into silence.