Reckless Endangerment (26 page)

‘Muriel Reed, I put it to you that on the twenty-ninth of July this year you murdered Sharon Gregory at the Dickin Hotel near Heathrow Airport.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Muriel, her steely gaze switching from me to Kate Ebdon and back again.

‘I have the authority of a senior officer to take a sample of your saliva, Mrs Reed.’ I had decided on a saliva sample to avoid the necessity of involving a medical practitioner. But if more were required, that could be dealt with later.

‘Well, if you must, you must, I suppose,’ she said resignedly.

I took that statement to be one of tacit consent.

‘And I am quite satisfied that once that sample has been analysed and compared with evidence found at the Dickin Hotel, it will prove beyond all reasonable doubt that you murdered Sharon Gregory.’

‘That’s it then, I suppose.’ Muriel paused for a second or two and glanced up at the barred window of the interview room. Then she lifted her chin slightly and finally gave in. ‘Of course I murdered the little slut. You don’t really think that I was going to stand by and see that tramp take everything away from me, do you? Can you imagine that Essex trollop flaunting herself as a countess and having everyone bowing and scraping and addressing her as “Lady Dretford”?’

And that was that. Nevertheless, I had to admire her vocabulary; she possessed a mastery of English that was capable of deploying three different adjectives with which to denigrate her victim.

‘You will now be charged with that murder, Mrs Reed,’ I said, ‘and will be detained here until your remand appearance at court tomorrow morning.’

‘I haven’t finished yet,’ said Muriel Reed, as I stood up.

‘You’re not obliged to say any more,’ I reminded her.

‘She was a pushover, you know, Chief Inspector,’ she continued, ignoring my words of caution. ‘I went up to her room and knocked, but I have to admit that I was surprised she was still at the hotel. When she opened the door she was stark naked except for a pair of black nylons. I imagine that she thought Julian had come back for seconds.’ She laughed, a grating, humourless laugh. Now that she had confessed, she seemed to be enjoying relating her account of how she had murdered Sharon and continued with spine-chilling deliberation. ‘I told her who I was and that Julian had sent me because he’d said that she liked to have fun with women as well as men, and that’s why I was there. She was more than willing and I spent a happy half hour making love to her.
And then I strangled her.
I expect you remember Julian telling you that I had a good forearm smash. Well, with that and my daily swimming, that little hussy was physically no match for me. I got dressed, picked up my mobile phone and went home.’

That was all I needed, and it was all on the tape.

‘But it wasn’t your mobile phone,’ said Kate, careful not to make it sound like a question, ‘it was Julian’s.’

‘I know that now. It wasn’t until much later that I realized I hadn’t even taken my own phone with me. And then I picked up her phone, thinking it was mine. That was my one mistake,’ admitted Muriel ruefully.

That wasn’t the only mistake you made
, I thought
.

I had a short discussion with the Crown Prosecution Service lawyer who was resident at the police station, and laid my evidence before him. It took him only a matter of minutes to formulate the charge, following which Kate and I escorted Muriel Reed to the custody suite where she was ‘put on the sheet’ for the murder of Sharon Gregory.

I was now faced with the onerous task of writing a report detailing everything connected with the enquiry, and ensuring that all the relevant statements were attached. When prosecuting counsel received his brief, which would be based on that report, he should have no problem in securing a conviction. I hoped. But, as I’ve said many times before, there is nothing quite as fickle as an English jury.

A month later, Muriel Reed was arraigned in Court Number Three at the Central Criminal Court at Old Bailey in the City of London. There was only one count on the indictment: the wilful murder of Sharon Gregory.

She was escorted into the dock by two stern-faced women prison officers, but stood erect, her expressionless gaze fixed firmly on the Royal Arms above the judge’s chair. As befitted the occasion, she was smartly dressed in a matching grey jacket and skirt, and a high-collared white blouse. She wore no jewellery, not even earrings.

Had she looked up at the public gallery above and behind her, she would have seen her husband. Julian Reed was seated in the front row, leaning forward with his arms folded on the edge of the balcony and studying the proceedings with great interest.

As the usher shouted ‘All rise’, the red-robed judge appeared and bowed to counsel. They bowed back.

With a shout of ‘Oyez, oyez!’ the usher had his real moment of glory, and went on to mumble something about ‘oyer and terminer and general gaol delivery’.

Then it began.

Muriel wanted to plead guilty, but the judge was having none of it. This was fairly common practice in murder trials; Her Majesty’s Justices rightly wanted to make sure that defendants knew what they would be signing up for. Either that or there was some conspiracy between the bench and the bar to make sure that counsel would be able to milk the legal aid system for all it was worth. Whatever the reason, the judge directed that a plea of not guilty should be entered.

At this point, I leaned forward and whispered in prosecuting counsel’s ear. He nodded and stood to address the judge.

‘My Lord, I have just been informed that the defendant’s husband is in the public gallery. I’d be obliged if Your Lordship direct that he be removed. I intend to call him as a witness.’

The judge looked up. ‘Mr Reed, be so good as to wait outside the court until you are called.’

That little piece of procedural correctness accomplished, the jury was empanelled and the theatre of British justice lumbered slowly into action. One almost expected to hear the usher shout, ‘Overture and beginners, please,’ to herald the opening addresses by counsel for the Crown and for the defence respectively.

It was at that point that I, as a witness, was also obliged to leave.

It was not until the afternoon that the usher opened the door and bellowed, ‘Detective Chief Inspector Brock’ in a voice that would have been heard in Ludgate Circus.

I took my place in the witness box, swore to tell the truth and waited for prosecuting counsel to earn his fee.

He took me through all the investigations that had led to the arrest of Muriel Reed until we reached the important bit.

‘Chief Inspector, did Mrs Reed state that she had murdered Sharon Gregory?’

‘She did, sir,’ I replied.

‘What exactly did she say?’

I repeated Muriel’s statement, word for word.

‘And was that confession made under caution and was it recorded?’ asked counsel.

‘It was, sir.’

‘And did the defendant say anything else?’

‘She did, sir. She made a voluntary statement describing her visit to the hotel room where the body of Sharon Gregory was later discovered.’ I went on to tell the court exactly what Muriel Reed had said.

Prosecuting counsel went through the rigmarole of having the tape-recording entered as an exhibit, asked a few more banal questions and sat down.

Defence counsel, a youngish Queen’s Counsel, rose and made an elaborate charade of finding the right page in her brief.

‘Inspector Brock, did you—?’

‘I’m a chief inspector, madam,’ I said. ‘A
detective
chief inspector.’

‘Quite so. I do apologize, Chief Inspector. I have you down in my brief as an inspector.’

That was always a show-stopper, one that threw her for a moment or two, and I could foresee a junior in her chambers getting a flea in his ear for making that mistake. But she quickly recovered and embarked upon a curious line of questioning.

‘Chief Inspector, did you form any opinion about my client?’

‘What sort of opinion, madam?’ I thoroughly enjoyed this sort of forensic jousting.

‘Well now, let me see.’ Pushing back her gown, the woman placed her left hand on her hip while holding her brief loosely in her other hand. ‘Do you think that Mrs Reed’s behaviour was entirely rational?’ she asked, as though that question had just popped into her head.

The judge raised his eyebrows and peered at counsel over his spectacles, but I was able to get my answer in before he queried whether her client’s defence was to be one of diminished responsibility.

‘I can’t answer that question, madam. I’m not qualified in psychiatry.’ I had to admit, but only to myself, that the cold way in which Muriel Reed had described how she’d murdered Sharon Gregory made me wonder about her sanity.

‘No, I appreciate that,’ said the lady barrister, a syrupy smile masking her disappointment that I’d not fallen into her rather obvious little trap. ‘But surely the crime of which she stands accused was not the action of a rational person.’

Oh, well, you asked for it.
‘In my experience, madam, no murderer or murderess is a rational being, otherwise they would not commit murder. But, as I said, I’m not a psychiatrist.’

The judge smiled, but said nothing.

Defence counsel tried one or two other well-known ploys, but had no greater success than she had with the first one. But she had to try; that’s what she was paid for.

And so it ground on, day after day. Testimony was given by Dr Mortlock, Linda Mitchell, Kate Ebdon and everyone else who had been involved in the investigation.

But the evidence that clinched it came from a forensic scientist who testified that the DNA sample taken from Muriel Reed matched the vaginal fluid found on Sharon’s body. A fingerprint officer assured the court that Muriel Reed’s fingerprints had also been found in room 219 and on the phone in the glove compartment of the Reeds’ Mercedes.

Julian Reed’s evidence was interesting. He recounted his conversation with his wife when he’d told her he was leaving her for Sharon Gregory, but altogether he didn’t contribute much. I don’t know why the prosecution bothered to call him at all.

Defence counsel made several attempts to undermine the evidence, but rather reminded me of a small dog angrily snapping at the witnesses’ heels. Wisely, she decided against putting her client into the witness box, probably assuming that Muriel Reed would merely repeat what she had said to me: ‘
Of course I murdered the little slut.
’

After thirteen days filled, for the most part, with technical evidence that would neither have excited nor interested aficionados of crime fiction, the jury retired to consider their verdict.

Despite Muriel Reed’s confession, it took the twelve upright citizens two hours to find her guilty. God knows what they were talking about during that time. Perhaps they were considering adding a rider for mercy.

Fourteen days after the verdict, we were back at the Old Bailey to hear the sentence.

Personally, I think the judge was a trifle soft in expressing the view that Muriel Reed had been betrayed by her husband. I’m not quite sure how that could’ve justified cold-blooded murder, but he imposed a life sentence with a tariff of just fifteen years before she could apply for parole.

After several weeks of deliberation, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that Julian Reed shared no culpability in the murder of Sharon Gregory. It was a conclusion at which I had arrived within seconds of finishing my interview with him. But then I’m not a lawyer and I didn’t know that it should have taken weeks to arrive at such a decision.

The resumed inquest into the death of Clifford Gregory took place a week after the sentencing of Muriel Reed.

Dave and I attended the Hammersmith coroner’s court at nine o’clock on the morning of Monday the thirtieth of September. The weather was dull and overcast; a suitable climate, I thought, for the final act in the murders of Clifford and Sharon Gregory.

I entered the witness box and told the court that Muriel Reed had been convicted of the wilful murder of Sharon Gregory. But then came the difficult part. I outlined the evidence that had been amassed regarding the death of Clifford Gregory and the inference I had drawn that he’d been murdered by his wife. I was followed by Henry Mortlock who gave the medical details.

After a summing-up by the coroner, his jury brought in a verdict that Clifford Gregory had been murdered by his wife, and that Sharon Gregory had been murdered by the Honourable Muriel Reed. Not that any of it meant anything now, but it tied up the loose ends.

I hadn’t told Julian Reed when the inquest was to take place and I didn’t tell him the verdict. I reckoned he’d suffered enough.

It was August, just over one year after the murder of Sharon Gregory.

The Miami flight had taken off from Heathrow Airport on time. Once it was airborne – and the seat-belt warning light had been extinguished – the cabin staff set about tending to the needs of the passengers.

‘Good morning.’ The smiling man seated in the first-class section of the aircraft was forty-one years of age and a frequent traveller to Miami where he had interests, business and social – but one in particular. ‘It’s nice to see you again …’ He paused while pretending to read the stewardess’s name badge. ‘Cindy.’

‘Good morning, sir.’ The stewardess’s name was Cindy Patterson. She was twenty-seven years of age, shapely, and her long jet-black hair was fashioned into a French roll. She returned the man’s smile. ‘Would you care for coffee, sir?’

‘Thank you, Cindy. Decaf, black, no sugar.’

‘I know, sir.’ Cindy smiled. ‘Breakfast will be served shortly.’

‘Thank you. That’ll be nice,’ said the man.

‘Will you be staying in Miami long, sir?’ Although it sounded like the normal trite enquiry that a stewardess would make to pass the time of day, there was more to it than that. And the man knew it.

‘Just for twenty-four hours. I should’ve had a business meeting later, but just as I arrived at Heathrow, I got a phone call to say that it was cancelled. But I decided to come anyway.’

Cindy leaned closer. ‘Liar!’ she whispered, and smiled. ‘What are you going to do here, then, sir?’ she asked, raising her voice again.