Tomfoolery

  Tomfoolery

  Graham Ison

  © Graham Ison, 1992

  Graham Ison has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1992 by Macmillan.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Chapter One

  It was an American who first discovered what had happened.

  And he was extremely displeased.

  In fact, he considered that he had been a victim not only of an audacious crime, but also of a distant travel agent who had deceived him into taking a holiday in London on the grounds that the crime rate there was considerably lower than in his native country.

  Still wearing a Stetson that he would not have been seen dead in back home in Lynchburg, Virginia, he was now telling the manager exactly what he thought of him and his hotel, and was thumping the fist of his left hand into the palm of his right to emphasise the salient points of his argument.

  The manager was no less concerned about it than the American. After all, the reputation of a high-class West End hotel depends much upon the ambient well-being of its guests.

  The American was joined by a loud Yorkshire industrialist who protested in language so strong and raucous that it caused the manager to wince and privately take the view that the money was in the wrong hands these days. Then a German woman arrived who made a similar complaint in strident and heavily accented English.

  Reluctantly, the manager picked up the telephone and called the police.

  Charlie One, the police area car responsible for covering that part of West End Central Division in which the hotel was situated, had been cruising in Piccadilly and arrived within two minutes of receiving the call.

  By the time the two officers had locked their Ford Sierra — car theft being ever on the increase in London — and donned their uniform caps, the security officer of the hotel, a retired policeman, had been peremptorily summoned from his office by the now-irate manager, and was hovering at the front entrance in the hope that he might steer the two PCs away from the curious stares of the idlers sitting around in the lobby.

  But that was not all. Detective Inspector Jack Gilroy of the Flying Squad had picked up the call on his radio and directed his driver to the hotel.

  Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Fox, operational head of the Flying Squad, had also heard the call on his way back from lunch with a crime reporter. He too told his driver, the mournful Swann, to make his way to the hotel.

  Which was to prove unfortunate for quite a number of people. Not least of whom was Detective Inspector Jack Gilroy who needed his governor breathing down his neck like he needed a hole in the head.

  But then, substantial jewel thefts are of great interest to the Flying Squad.

  The crew of Charlie One had been quite happy to be dismissed from all the activity on condition that they committed nothing to paper beyond a few lines in their incident report books and the entry in the area car log that was required by the regulations. Fox, or Gilroy — and the latter was the more likely — would make the entry in the major crime book at West End Central police station once the full extent of the thefts was known. The crime might yet prove to be less serious than the first garbled outpourings of the hotel manager had appeared to indicate. If that were the case then Fox would be saved the explanations that were required when a major crime was downgraded to a minor one. But then Fox was a supreme optimist.

  ‘Well, Jack, what’s it all about?’ Fox stood in the centre of the lobby and gazed around as he spoke. He was always impressed by big London hotels, and envious of the well-dressed patrons who appeared to have no visible means of support and little else to do all day but sit around drinking.

  Gilroy examined the brief notes he had made. ‘Walk-in thief, guv,’ he said. ‘Ripped off a dozen or so rooms … maybe more. Jewellery every time. According to the losers, total value about eighty grand.’ Glancing up, he added with a grin, ‘But that might be what they propose to see the insurance people off for, rather than the true value of what’s been nicked.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Fox. ‘What a terrible shame.’ He smoothed the lapels of his Gieves and Hawkes suit and checked that his side flaps were not tucked wholly or partly inside his pockets. Fox’s sartorial idiosyncrasies were well known at Scotland Yard, but it would be a foolish man who suggested that he was a dandy. And despite retaining his native Cockney accent, Fox took as much care over his spoken English — when the mood took him — as he did over his clothes. He described himself as a man of good taste and his concern for what he wore merely underlined the care he took with his job as a pursuer of the unrighteous. And if anyone was in any doubt about that, Fox was the holder of the Queen’s Gallantry Medal which he had been awarded for disarming a villain who had been so ill-advised as to pull a gun on him. ‘Do we have any witnesses, dear boy?’ he enquired.

  ‘Sort of. The linkman.’

  ‘Any good?’

  Gilroy shrugged. ‘Might be, guv.’

  ‘Well, have you spoken to him yet?’

  ‘Been too busy taking the details of what these villains had off, sir.’

  ‘Villains? In the plural, Jack?’

  ‘Second-hand so far, guv. The manager reckons that the linkman saw a car he was a bit sussy about. Man and a woman. Plus the driver.’

  ‘Oh!’ Fox spoke flatly and shrugged. ‘Where is the manager?’

  ‘Over there,’ said Gilroy. ‘Him in the natty black jacket and pinstripes, surrounded by a crowd of happy holiday-makers.’

  ‘We’ll have a chat with him, then. The merry throng comprises the losers, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Gilroy crossed the lobby and whispered to the manager, who, with a look of relief at having been rescued, led Gilroy and Fox into his office.

  ‘Well, Mr, er —?’

  ‘Hawkins. Mr Hawkins,’ said the manager.

  ‘Well, Mr Hawkins, what seems to be the problem here?’ Without waiting for an invitation, Fox sat down in a gilt reproduction armchair.

  ‘The problem!’ Hawkins sounded outraged. ‘I would venture to suggest that it’s a bit more than a problem.’ He paused. ‘Who are you, anyway?’

  Fox smiled disarmingly. ‘How remiss of me,’ he said. ‘Thomas Fox … of the Flying Squad.’ He raised himself an inch or two off his chair and shook hands.

  ‘Well, the problem, as you put it, consists of about twelve of my guests having had their rooms burgled and jewellery to the tune of about eighty thousand pounds stolen. So far.’

  ‘So far?’ Fox raised an eyebrow.

  Hawkins sat down in the chair behind his ornate desk, suddenly deflated by the monstrous events of the day. ‘Not all the guests are in the hotel at the moment,’ he said wearily. ‘For all I know, others may come in at any time to complain of a loss.’

  ‘You may well be right,’ said Fox sympathetically. ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘What I want to know,’ continued the manager, ‘and certainly what my directors will want to know …’ He paused briefly to emphasise his erroneous belief that mention of his directors would persu
ade Fox to give some priority to his enquiries, ‘is what the police are doing about it.’

  Fox smiled benignly. ‘We shall pursue the investigation with vigour,’ he said. ‘Now, Mr Hawkins, my detective inspector tells me that your linkman has some valuable information to impart to me.’

  ‘Er, yes. Shall I …?’ The manager’s hand hovered over the telephone.

  ‘Fetch him in? If you would be so kind.’ Fox crossed his legs, half turned in his chair and gazed at a David Gentleman print on the wall. ‘Superb picture, that,’ he murmured.

  Despite the warmth of the mid-July day, the linkman wore a greenish-grey greatcoat and held a top hat of the same colour against his chest. As if in the presence of royalty, he bobbed his head and addressed the manager. ‘You sent for me, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Dibbens. This is …’ Hawkins paused. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’ve forgotten your —’

  ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Thomas Fox … of the Flying Squad.’ Fox carefully appraised the linkman’s livery. ‘Herbert of Bruton Street, I should think,’ he said.

  The linkman grinned. ‘Yes, sir. All our stuff comes from there.’

  ‘Thought so,’ said Fox, nodding amiably. ‘Very decent cut, that.’

  ‘Ahem!’ The manager coughed discreetly. ‘Dibbens was the man who saw the motorcar,’ he said.

  ‘What exactly did you see?’ Fox became incisive.

  ‘Must have been about half past one, sir,’ said Dibbens. ‘Always a bit of a rush at lunch time, but I noticed these two coming out. Man and a woman. She was a bit of all right, she was.’ He grinned, and the manager coughed again.

  ‘Why did you notice them particularly?’ asked Fox.

  ‘Well, I asked them if they wanted a cab, but they said no, they’d got a car. And they walked across the forecourt to this Jag.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘A new one, it was. An XJ6, dark green. I’ve the number here.’ Dibbens produced a handful of paper money from his pocket and sorted through it. Then he extracted a five-pound note and peered at it. ‘I wrote it down on this,’ he said. ‘There you are.’

  Fox waved a hand towards Gilroy. ‘My detective inspector will take the details. Now, what alerted you to these people?’

  ‘It was his suit, sir,’ said the linkman.

  ‘His suit?’ Fox looked suddenly interested.

  ‘Yes, sir. Very poor cut, it was.’

  Fox nodded knowledgeably. ‘I see.’

  ‘And I thought to myself, that suit doesn’t go with that motor. That’s what I thought.’ And by way of explanation added, ‘You get to know the real class in this job, sir. And you get to know them as who ain’t got two ha’pennies to rub together. If you get my drift, sir.’

  ‘Oh, I do, I do,’ said Fox warmly.

  ‘And he had dirty shoes, an’ all,’ said Dibbens with a sniff. In his view that was the final condemnation.

  Fox tutted. ‘Descriptions?’

  *

  The investigation dragged on for most of the afternoon. Victim after victim was interviewed by Jack Gilroy’s team and all told much the same story. They had left jewellery — without which their womenfolk had refused to travel — in their hotel rooms. Yes, they admitted, the management had advised placing it in the hotel safe, but, well, you know how it is. On their return from seeing the Changing of the Guard, or visiting the shops, or lunching at some expensive restaurant, they had discovered that various items of jewellery were missing from their rooms. For the most part these items consisted of necklaces, earrings, brooches and rings, but in one case an attractive French woman reluctantly admitted to the loss of a pair of diamond nipple clips.

  The scenes-of-crime team arrived and spread fingerprint powder about, more as a sop to the losers than in any belief that the thieves might have left any traces of their crime. Then they started to take elimination prints from guests and staff. But their hearts weren’t in it. Like Tommy Fox, they knew a professional heist when they saw one.

  Detective Inspector Gilroy set his team to taking statements from the guests, the linkman, the manager and anyone else who might subsequently be called to give evidence. Then he went back to Scotland Yard. By which time the canteen was closed.

  *

  Late that evening Gilroy held a briefing in his office at New Scotland Yard. ‘To sum up,’ he said, gazing round at his team, ‘the bill has now risen to about a hundred grand’s worth of tomfoolery. The likely runners are a bloke and a bird … and the driver.’ He glanced down at the sheet of paper on his desk. ‘According to the linkman, the man was aged anything between thirty and fifty, medium build, medium height, darkish hair. Poor-quality suit and dirty shoes.’

  ‘And the bird, guv?’ asked a DC with more than professional interest.

  Gilroy scoffed. ‘Legs all the way up to her arse and boobs that’d stop her ever falling flat on her face. Apart from that, zilch! And no description of the driver, except that he can’t drive. Took off so fast he left half a hundredweight of rubber on the forecourt of the hotel.’ He screwed up the piece of paper and tossed it into the waste-paper basket. ‘As for the car,’ he continued, ‘it was nicked. Taken from Hyde Park Gate this morning. It’s been circulated, of course, but not a sign of it so far. But that does seem to point to the three persons aforementioned having been involved.’ Gilroy scowled. ‘Perhaps,’ he added cautiously. Jack Gilroy had been a detective for too long to jump to rash conclusions.

  ‘So where do we go from here, guv?’ asked DS Crozier.

  Gilroy shrugged. ‘The scenes-of-crime lads dusted for dabs,’ he said. ‘All the usual places, but they’re not hopeful. They’ve got a stack of elimination prints to wade through, but you know as well as I do that at the end of the day there won’t be anything. I’ve got SO11 doing a run through their criminal-intelligence files just to see if there are any likely runners on the outside —’ Gilroy paused as the door to his office opened.

  Tommy Fox stood on the threshold. ‘Jack, an interesting snippet has just come through from Hawkins, the hotel manager.’ He waved down the assortment of detectives who were struggling to their feet out of deference to Fox’s rank.

  ‘What’s that, guv?’

  ‘They’ve lost a receptionist, Jack.’

  ‘Lost one?’ Gilroy looked puzzled.

  ‘Yes. A bloke, apparently. He’d worked there for about five or six weeks. Today, would you believe, he took it into his head to do a runner. Gone. No trace.’

  ‘When was this, guv?’

  ‘Strange to relate, Jack. When the tumult and the shouting had sort of petered out, the manager went to look for this finger and he’d gone to lunch. Looks like a long lunch a long way away. Didn’t come back. Look into it, Jack. Might mean something.’

  ‘If he’s in on it, guv’nor, it might explain how the villains knew which rooms to make for. And how it was they had keys to get in with.’

  ‘Now you’re beginning to think along the right lines, Jack.’ Fox turned and then paused. ‘Ron.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said DS Crozier.

  ‘I’ve got your Long Service and Good Conduct Medal in my drawer, seeing that you refused to have it presented by the Commissioner. Been there for about two weeks now. Pick the bloody thing up, will you.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  *

  The next morning Gilroy pursued the matter of the missing receptionist.

  ‘I understand that a member of your staff has disappeared, Mr Hawkins.’ Gilroy smiled as he eased himself into one of the manager’s chairs.

  ‘Yes.’ Hawkins had a sour expression on his face. ‘It was shortly after the robbery yesterday that the duty assistant manager came to see me to say that this man Wilkins had gone.’

  ‘Not gone sick or anything like that, I suppose?’

  ‘Well, if he has I wasn’t advised,’ said Hawkins angrily. Such an omission would, in his book, be unthinkable.

  ‘Wilkins, you say?’ said Gilroy. Hawkins nodded. ‘D’you have an address for him
?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve written it down for you. At least that was the address he gave when we took him on. Of course, he lives in.’

  ‘What, here?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Hawkins looked suitably shocked that such a menial might actually be accommodated in the same building as paying guests. ‘In the hostel.’

  ‘I see. And have you checked his room there?’

  ‘Good God, no. It’s in Earl’s Court.’ Hawkins spoke as if it were in the middle of the Gobi Desert.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Gilroy. ‘That’d better be the first thing we do. Now then, when did he start here?’

  Hawkins dropped his gaze. He was not at all pleased at being interrogated about his errant receptionist and had the feeling that this policeman was silently smirking at what he probably thought was gross incompetence. ‘I have a note of it here,’ he said, absently pushing at the sole piece of paper on his desk. ‘The fourth of June.’ He switched his gaze to a calendar. ‘Just over five weeks ago.’

  ‘References? Did you take up references?’

  For a moment or two, Hawkins stared at Gilroy. ‘I shall have to enquire of my personnel manager,’ he said finally.

  ‘Would you do so, please. Now.’ Gilroy grinned. It did little for the manager’s self-esteem.

  Hawkins grabbed at the handset of his telephone and pressed a button. ‘This Wilkins person,’ he said to whoever had answered. ‘What about references?’ For some seconds he listened, a frown slowly settling on his brow. ‘I’ll speak to you later,’ he barked before replacing the handset. ‘It would seem not,’ he said with obvious embarrassment. ‘The man had been employed in the South of France, Cannes, apparently, and produced written references. The personnel manager saw fit not to check them. Stupid man muttered something about the cost of international telephone calls.’ He puffed out his chest. ‘I shall advise him as to his future conduct, you may rest assured.’

  ‘Bit late now,’ said Gilroy with another grin. ‘This Wilkins. Reliable, was he?’

  ‘There were always reservations about him.’