Reckless Endangerment (9 page)

‘That doesn’t get me very far,’ I said. ‘We know that he was suffocated, rather than killed with the window sash weight. I suppose there was nothing else anywhere in the house that might indicate who the murderer was?’ I knew instinctively that that was a vain hope. Not that it mattered. Now that we had the evidence that Sharon Gregory had purchased the sash weight and the clothes line, I was as certain as could be that she had killed her husband.

‘Nothing that points directly to the killer, I’m afraid, but we made some interesting discoveries. We found traces of the victim’s blood in the shower, although an attempt had been made to wash it away. If I can make a guess, I’d say that the murderer was naked and then showered. Furthermore, although the sash weight had been washed, we were still able to find traces of the victim’s blood in the P-trap under the kitchen sink.’

‘That fits with my theory that Sharon was the killer,’ I said. ‘And, of course, she was naked when Miller found her.’

‘We also examined all the cupboards and drawers,’ said Linda, ‘and none of them was fitted with a lock. And, as you saw for yourself, there was no indication that the front door had been forced. No jemmy marks, no broken glass.’

‘So,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘we now have traces of blood in the shower, the sink and on the sash weight, and Sharon appears to have been lying to us about the gag. Also, Doctor Mortlock found traces of Rohypnol in the victim’s hair. All of which will give me something to question her further about. When we find her. What about fingerprints?’

‘Early days yet, Mr Brock, although I can tell you that we couldn’t find any identifiable prints on the jewellery. As you can imagine, there were a lot of dabs around the house and it’ll take some time to sort them out and eliminate those of Clifford and Sharon Gregory. But I can tell you that although there were fingerprints on the whisky bottle we found in the dining room, they were
not
Clifford Gregory’s. And there wasn’t a dirty glass anywhere. It’s made more difficult in that we don’t yet know the identity of any friends who may have been frequent callers at the house. Or even Clifford Gregory’s clients.’

‘You could start by taking elimination prints from Sidney Miller, the neighbour who found her,’ I suggested.

‘I’ve got him on my list of things to do.’ Linda looked up with a frown that implied that I shouldn’t try to tell her how to do her job.

‘Whoops! Sorry,’ I said.

‘However, there is one thing I’d like to say, Mr Brock. I’ve examined hundreds of crime scenes over the years and I’ve never come across a break-in where the burglar has created as much mess as is the case with this one.’

‘Nor have I, Linda.’

‘Now, about the two mobile phones in the house. They were as I suspected: the one in the kitchen was Sharon’s and the other one belonged to her husband.’

‘Give Linda the list you took from the mobile that was in Sharon’s locker at the airport, Dave.’ I gave Linda time to study the numbers, and then asked, ‘Were any of those numbers on Sharon’s house mobile, Linda?’

‘Not one.’ Having compared the list with her own notes, Linda handed it back. ‘And no calls were made to any of those numbers from the mobile found at the house.’

‘That confirms my original thought,’ I said. ‘That’s a list of her fancy men. Will you let me know as soon as you have something on the prints?’

‘Of course.’ Linda closed her file, gave me a copy of her initial report and was about to leave when she paused. ‘Incidentally, the rope with which Sharon Gregory was tied up was a mechanical fit to the clothes line we found in the garage.’ And with that latest confirmation of our suspicions about the burglary and murder, she left to make her way back to Walworth.

Wilberforce glanced up as I walked into the incident room with Dave. ‘I’ve got the results of the subscriber checks on the numbers on Sharon’s phone, sir. The one Dave found at the airport.’

‘Where do they live, Colin? Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, or none of the above?’ I suggested cynically.

‘As a matter of fact, we’re in luck. One goes out to a Gordon Harrison in Glenn Road, Fulham; there’s a Max Riley in Guildford; Frank Digby’s at Chalfont St Giles; and a Julian Reed lives in Chelsea. I’m still waiting for Dave to get the details of the two in the United States.’

‘At least that’ll give us something to start with. Given that the subscribers probably all work, we’d better leave it until this evening.’

‘Oh good!’ exclaimed Dave. ‘That’s another evening taken care of.’

‘Is Madeleine working, then?’ Dave’s wife was a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet and more often than not their hours of work conflicted rather than coincided.

‘She’s pretending to be a swan in
Swan Lake
at Covent Garden,’ said Dave. ‘For two whole weeks. I sometimes think that her job is worse than ours.’

I returned to my office and sent for DC Appleby.

‘I’ve got a job for you, John.’

‘Sir?’ John Appleby was a young, smartly-dressed and very keen detective constable.

‘Get on to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency at Swansea and see if you can get details of any cars that might be owned by the names that Sergeant Poole found on Sharon Gregory’s mobile phone. The British ones, of course.’

‘Right, sir.’ Appleby loved tasks like that and he set to work immediately.

I had no idea whether that information would be of any help to us, but in cases like the present one, I had to try everything. It was what Dave called clutching at non-existent straws.

It took Appleby half an hour to complete his check with the DVLA.

The list he handed me was interesting. Frank Digby of Chalfont St Giles boasted a Ford Galaxy; Julian Reed, who lived in Chelsea, owned a Mercedes; and Gordon Harrison, the man in Glenn Road, Fulham, owned a Jaguar XF. All expensive cars. But according to Swansea, Max Riley of Guildford was not registered as the keeper of a motor vehicle of any description.

‘Well done, John. Give them to Sergeant Wilberforce and ask him to put them on the Police National Computer with the proviso that sightings are to be reported, but the driver is not to be questioned. Unless, of course,’ I added, ‘they’ve been stopped for a traffic offence. I wouldn’t want to upset the Black Rats by preventing them from doing their job.’

Appleby looked rather pained. ‘I can put them on the PNC, sir.’

‘Sorry, John, of course you can. Go ahead, but tell DS Wilberforce what you’ve done.’ I didn’t want to upset our office genius either.

A
fter leaving her home in West Drayton on Monday morning, Sharon Gregory had driven the four miles to the Chimes Shopping Centre at Uxbridge and spent half an hour looking around the shops. In one of them, a boutique that specialized in erotica, she selected a thong, a shelf bra and a pair of black hold-up stockings.

‘That should get my man excited, don’t you think?’ Sharon asked the salesgirl.

‘Without a doubt,’ said the assistant. ‘I’ve got a similar set and they work for me every time.’

‘I should think you’re lucky enough not to have to try very hard,’ said Sharon, glancing enviously at the girl’s décolletage, while paying for her purchases using her dead husband’s credit card. The assistant didn’t see the card and therefore wouldn’t have noticed that it bore a man’s name, but she wouldn’t have cared anyway.

Her shopping finished, Sharon found an Italian restaurant and took a seat away from the window. It was not yet time for lunch, but she had skipped breakfast and was feeling a little hungry. She ordered an omelette, followed by a cup of coffee and a pastry. Twenty minutes later, she ordered a second cup of coffee, but dismissed the idea of another pastry. She did have her figure to worry about.

‘Is there anything else you’d care for?’ asked the handsome young waiter when Sharon asked for her bill.

‘You never know,’ she said, laying a hand on the waiter’s arm. Perhaps no more than twenty, he was tall and slender and had a face that suggested Italian ancestry, although he spoke with a Cockney accent. He was certainly of the type that appealed to her. ‘But I don’t have the time right now. Maybe later?’ She spoke in a contrived sultry voice and flashed the young man a beguiling smile. ‘Why don’t you give me your phone number?’

Agreeably surprised to have been propositioned by an attractive girl, the waiter scribbled his mobile number on a paper napkin and slid it surreptitiously across the table. ‘I’m afraid I’m working until midnight tonight and tomorrow, but I’m off at six the day after,’ he said.

‘I’ll call you,’ said Sharon, putting the napkin into her handbag; she had to admit, if only to herself, that she could be a very deceitful temptress who enjoyed teasing handsome young men. However, she had other plans in which the waiter would play no part. Another time, perhaps?

Unsurprisingly, Sharon having flirted outrageously, the young waiter didn’t notice that it was her dead husband’s credit card that he put in the machine before handing it to her. Not that it would have worried him any more than it may have concerned the girl at the lingerie boutique, had she seen it.

It was one of the great advantages of the chip-and-pin method of payment.

Finally, Sharon found a mobile phone outlet and bought an untraceable pay-as-you-go throwaway for which she paid cash. She put ten-pounds’-worth of talk time on to it, for which she also paid cash.

And then it was time for what she hoped would be a ‘fun’ afternoon.

Arriving at the Dickin Hotel on the fringes of Heathrow Airport at midday, Sharon checked in and took the lift to the second floor. Ten minutes later, recalling the number from memory, she made a telephone call on her new mobile.

‘I’m ready and waiting for you, darling,’ she said, when the man answered.

‘Are you at our usual hotel?’ asked the man, his excitement mounting.

‘Of course, darling. I’m in room 219 this time.’

There was a pause while the man jotted down the room number on the pad by the telephone and calculated how long it would take him to get there. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can, darling,’ he said, having told Sharon when he expected to arrive.

‘Drive carefully,’ cautioned Sharon. She terminated the call and deleted the number from the phone.

She undressed and hung her uniform in the clothes closet. Crossing the room to her suitcase, she put in the underwear and tights in which she had arrived. During the time she had to wait until the man arrived, she took a much-needed shower. The weather was still in the low eighties Fahrenheit and even the air conditioning in the hotel was struggling to alleviate the humidity.

Emerging from the shower room, she dried herself, brushed her long, honey blonde hair and skilfully applied her make-up. And from her selection of perfumes, she applied the one that had been given to her by the man she was expecting. Next she donned the tiny red thong, matching shelf bra and a pair of sheer black hold-up stockings, all of which she had purchased in Uxbridge. Having slipped into a cream satin robe, she pushed her feet into a pair of black stilettos.

Pouring herself a gin and tonic from the minibar, she sat down in an armchair to await the arrival of her lover.

When the expected knock came, she crossed the room and peered through the peephole. Disconnecting the security chain, she opened the door.

Her lover, attired in a sports shirt and slacks, hastened into the room, pausing only to hang a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the outside handle. He closed the door behind him, locked it and reconnected the security chain.

Sharon slipped off her robe and tossed it on to a chair; it hung there briefly before slithering to the floor. For a moment or two the man stood admiring the girl’s trim and exciting figure. She in turn studied his firm body.

The next twenty seconds were filled with a frenzy of lust as his clothing was strewn about the room and he divested Sharon of her minimal attire, apart from her stockings. Effortlessly lifting her in his arms, he placed her on the bed.

An hour later they lay on top of the duvet, satiated and perspiring. Sharon turned and nestled closer to her lover. ‘I’ve something wonderful to tell you, darling, something that means we can now be together forever,’ she said, moving her hand enticingly down his torso.

Purely on the basis that Fulham was closer to our Empress State Building office than the other names on Sharon’s list, I decided that Dave and I would interview Gordon Harrison first.

It was half past five when we arrived at Glenn Road. Harrison’s terraced house was one of several in the road that had been ‘gentrified’. According to the electoral roll, he lived there by himself. I’d taken a chance on him being at home, and I was lucky.

‘Hi!’ The man who answered the door was attired in shorts, tee-shirt and a pair of flip-flops. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, had a shock of unruly blond hair and was suntanned.

‘Mr Harrison?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I’m Gordon Harrison.’ He looked slightly concerned to be confronted by two strangers on his doorstep, one of whom was six foot tall, well-built and black. ‘You’re not Bible bashers, are you?’

‘No, Mr Harrison, we’re police officers.’ I produced my warrant card to allay any suspicion that we might be undercover evangelists. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock of Scotland Yard and this is Detective Sergeant Poole.’

‘Are you sure you’ve got the right Gordon Harrison? I mean, what could the police possibly want with me?’ Harrison’s face took on a shifty expression.

‘I think so,’ said Dave. ‘We understand that you’re acquainted with Sharon Gregory.’

‘Oh, Sharon, yah!’ said Harrison, with an air of relief. ‘What’s that sexy blonde bombshell been up to now?’ He stepped forward and shot a glance at the front door that was immediately next to his own, as if fearful that a neighbour might be lurking behind it, listening. ‘You’d better come in and make yourselves comfortable.’

Now that Harrison had said more than a few words, I detected a possibly contrived mid-Atlantic accent. We followed him into his sitting room which, like the hall, had woodblock flooring. I was conscious of the noise my shoes made as we crossed to the only two armchairs in the room.