Tomfoolery Read online

  ‘Really? That’s odd. When can we expect a result?’

  ‘The lab boys are running tests now, sir. Shouldn’t take long, sir. They’ll let you know as soon as possible. The fingerprint lads have already given it the once over.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Still waiting, guv.’ Evans shrugged. ‘Of course, there’s not only the pistol, there’s the box as well.’

  ‘Box? What box?’

  ‘The pistol was in a plastic box. One of those self-sealing things that you put your sandwiches in.’

  ‘Put my sandwiches in? What the hell are you talking about, Denzil?’

  ‘Well not you, perhaps, but some people, guv.’ Evans backtracked rapidly.

  ‘Really? How extraordinary.’

  ‘It was sealed up with tape, sir, to stop the water getting in. So to be on the safe side I got the fingerprint lads to undo it. Like you said, didn’t want to bugger up any impressions. Anyway, with any luck, there’ll be some dabs on that too.’

  ‘What about the house?’

  ‘They’ve turned up several sets there, sir. They’re checking those against main and scenes-of-crime collections now. The only thing they can be sure of to date is that Murchison’s prints were not at Stoke d’Abernon.’

  ‘I suppose that’s useful,’ said Fox. ‘But for the moment I can’t work out why.’

  *

  ‘It looks as though we’re going to run out of custody time for Harley before Fingerprint Branch have finished, Jack,’ said Fox as he and Gilroy drove from the Yard to Bow Street police station.

  ‘Unless we charge him, sir,’ said Gilroy.

  ‘I’d rather not do that yet,’ said Fox. ‘We’d be safe enough putting him on the sheet for the theft, certainly, but I want him to think he’s in the clear. Just for a while, anyway. And you can bet that he won’t let us take his prints voluntarily. Not that a magistrate’s order would be much good. Ever tried taking fingerprints by force, Jack?’

  ‘Not lately, sir.’

  ‘So we’re just going to have to pretend.’ And for the rest of the journey, Fox whistled variations on extracts from Bizet’s Carmen. His own, unrecognisable variations.

  The custody sergeant appeared with Thomas Harley, and went through the necessary paperwork before retiring to his office.

  ‘Sit down and make yourself comfortable,’ said Fox. ‘This could take some time.’

  ‘I am making a formal application to see my solicitor,’ said Harley.

  Fox glanced briefly over his shoulder as if expecting to see a High Court judge waiting there. ‘What, now? But you haven’t heard what I’ve got to say.’

  ‘Unless you’re about to say that you’re releasing me with an apology, I’m not interested.’

  Fox smiled. ‘There’s one thing that always impresses me, Jack,’ he said to Gilroy. ‘And that is a sense of humour in the face of adversity.’

  ‘I’m quite serious about this,’ said Harley. ‘Apart from making a complaint to the appropriate authorities, I intend to start proceedings for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fox in an absent sort of way. ‘I was about to say that it would be a waste of your money, Thomas, old dear, but then it’s not your money, is it? You’ve nicked it all.’

  ‘I’m warning you —’

  ‘We have your wife in custody,’ said Fox mildly.

  Harley raised his eyebrows. ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘She was arrested yesterday, returning from Nice.’

  Harley leaned back, a satisfied smile on his face. ‘I’ll bet she didn’t like that.’

  ‘No, she didn’t. What she liked even less was to learn that you’d been screwing Jane Meadows.’ Fox flicked a crumb off the table.

  ‘How did she —? What d’you mean by —?’

  ‘If you’re wondering how she knew, I told her,’ said Fox.

  ‘You’ve no right —’

  ‘And she also told us that you were responsible for the theft of the jewellery at the hotel on the twelfth of July, Thomas. The theft which has been occupying so much of my time.’ Fox blithely reeled off the lie; it sounded convincing even to Gilroy. ‘And a few strange tales about things that go bump in the night.’

  ‘It’s a pack of lies.’

  ‘You had nothing to do with this jewellery theft, then?’ Fox looked uninterested.

  ‘It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard,’ said Harley. ‘I was in the South of France. It’s obviously a case of mistaken identity.’

  ‘Then you’re prepared to give us the name of some person who can verify that. Madame Calmet at the brothel in Nice, perhaps?’ Fox grinned insolently.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. That stupid bitch of a wife of mine imagines these things,’ said Harley.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fox casually, ‘I should think that imagination plays quite a large part in your life. Anyway, time will tell. We’ve searched your house, by the way.’

  ‘About the only jewellery you’ll find there will be a couple of Susan’s bead necklaces, I should think,’ said Harley caustically. ‘She’s the one you ought to be talking to about jewellery theft.’

  ‘But your wife claims that she knows nothing of the house at Stoke d’Abernon, much less been there,’ said Fox. ‘Anyway, we’ve recovered the jewellery.’

  That clearly shook Harley. ‘If you’ve recovered this jewellery you’ve been talking about, then,’ he said, ‘surely you’ve arrested someone?’ But the statement was flat and unconvincing.

  ‘Yes. A man called James Murchison. And he’s not too impressed with you, Thomas, old love. Reckons you’ve tried to have him over.’ Murchison hadn’t actually said as much, attempting as he was to disengage himself from the heavy part of the proceedings, but Fox enjoyed mixing it for members of the villainry.

  ‘I’ve never heard of him,’ said Harley.

  ‘Is that so? Then why, Thomas, were you so ready to shake hands with someone who knocked at your front door the other night and announced that he was Murchison’s messenger?’ Fox leaned across and took the pocket book that Gilroy was holding and turned a page. ‘And to say, and I quote, “I can explain everything”?’ Harley said nothing. Just sat and stared at Fox. ‘And that brings me to my next point,’ Fox continued. ‘When we dug up the coffin — your coffin, Thomas — we found therein the body of Donald Dixon. You will also know that he had been murdered. I may say, purely as an aside, that the vicar of Cray Magna takes rather a poor view of people who con him into burying murder victims in his churchyard.’

  ‘What has that to do with me?’ Harley regarded Fox with a supercilious sneer. ‘Thomas Harley is not exactly an uncommon name. I imagine there are quite a few graves with that name around the country. Are you going to produce someone who says that I had something to do with it? Someone in your debt, perhaps, who will perjure himself to say that I was there when in fact I was in the South of France.’

  Fox leaned across the table until his face was within inches of Harley’s. ‘Cut the crap, mister,’ he said. ‘We’ve found the gun that killed Dixon, and we found it in the water tank in the loft of your drum at Stoke d’Abernon. And what’s more, my friend, it’s got your fingerprints all over it.’ That wasn’t true, of course. There were fingerprints on the box, certainly. But it had yet to be decided whose prints they were. Nor, indeed, had the gun yet been identified as the murder weapon.

  Harley smiled disarmingly. ‘I hate to say this,’ he said, ‘but your chaps must have made a mistake. Either that or it’s one of these frame-ups that one hears so much about these days.’

  ‘I thought you’d say something like that,’ said Fox and waited patiently.

  ‘It was my wife and Murchison,’ said Harley after a while.

  ‘Oh, is that a fact.’

  ‘They were having an affair.’

  Fox hooted with derisive laughter. ‘Oh, do leave off,’ he said. ‘Whatever else you might say about your wife, she’s a bit above having it off with a slag
like Murchison. She’s really quite a classy bird, isn’t she?’

  ‘You’re trying to con me,’ said Harley. ‘I’ve heard about this sort of thing. You haven’t got a shred of evidence that will prove I had anything to do with this ridiculous business.’

  Fox leaned forward menacingly. ‘Just listen, Thomas,’ he said, ‘and listen good. I’ll repeat what I said just now. Point One. We found the weapon that killed Dixon in the water tank in the loft of your house. Point Two. Your fingerprints were on it. With me so far?’ He leaned back and paused. ‘That evidence will be put before a jury at the Old Bailey … probably. I suppose it might be Guildford Crown Court, on the other hand. But I’m quite satisfied that there’s enough there to put you away for life, so I don’t really care what you’ve got to say about it. It’s irrelevant, Thomas. All that remains for me to do now is to charge you with the murder of Donald Dixon and get you remanded in custody by the Bow Street magistrate tomorrow morning. None of that’s a problem to me.’

  Harley suddenly realised that this policeman opposite him, despite his bantering and almost light-hearted approach, was not playing games.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I admit that I helped them to hide the gun, but what else could I do? They killed the bloody man in my house —’

  ‘Which house?’

  Harley paused.

  ‘The one at Stoke d’Abernon,’ he said.

  ‘Bad luck,’ said Fox. ‘Wrong one. You see, Thomas, old love, Murchison’s fingerprints were found only at Kingston Hill. There was no trace of them at Stoke d’Abernon. Apart from on the box that contained the weapon. And I told you, your prints were on that too. However, I shall leave you to simmer gently while we have another chat with Jane Meadows,’ he added. ‘Get the gaoler to fetch her up, Jack, will you.’

  That obviously had some impact on Harley. ‘What the —?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Fox. ‘Didn’t I mention that? Yes, we’ve arrested Jane Meadows. Been telling us some enthralling stuff about funerals in darkest Devon, Thomas old love.’

  *

  Jane Meadows’ confidence appeared to have increased rather than diminished in the time she had been at Bow Street police station. She was composed, and despite the spartan accommodation of a police cell, still managed to look very attractive. She had taken care over her make-up and her short blonde hair was immaculate. She sat now, one nylon-clad leg crossed over the other, cool and collected, and with a half smile on her face.

  But Fox soon put a stop to that.

  ‘When Harley rented a house on Kingston Hill,’ he began, ‘you undertook to provide a reference for him, and even offered to furnish a bank guarantee if necessary. The telephone number you used was that of Benson’s flat. The same number, in fact, as the one you gave to the vicar of Cray Magna. Then, more than a year ago, you pretended to be Mrs Harley when you helped Harley to dispose of his house in Godalming. So from now on we’ll work on the basis that your association with him was a little more than an innocent friendship arising out of a few rounds of golf. Far from being dragged into his criminal activities, Mrs Meadows, I am in little doubt that you were a willing participant.’

  Jane Meadows uncrossed her legs and sat up, swinging herself round to face Fox. ‘I don’t know what you —’

  Fox cut across her. ‘But more importantly, you blackmailed Jeremy Benson to the tune of twenty thousand pounds. And you won’t walk out of that as you did when your husband went down for seven years,’ continued Fox relentlessly. ‘But that’s not all.’ He turned to Gilroy. ‘Have you got those papers, Jack?’

  Gilroy opened his briefcase and gave Fox the notes and photostats that had been taken at the bank and the credit card company. ‘These, sir?’

  ‘Those are the ones, Jack. Now, Mrs Meadows,’ he said. ‘You say that you were in the South of France — at the villa Thomas Harley had rented for the pair of you — on the twelfth of July, and that you had been there for some time before that? What were the dates exactly?’

  ‘I can’t remember … exactly.’ She tossed her head imperiously. ‘It was from about the second of July, I think.’

  ‘You’ve already admitted coming back to arrange the so-called funeral on the nineteenth,’ continued Fox. Jane Meadows gave a brief nod. ‘But did you return to this country at any time between the second and the nineteenth?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She dismissed the proposition scornfully. ‘You don’t go on holiday and come back halfway through.’

  ‘It was a holiday, then?’

  ‘I’ve already said so.’

  Fox had decided that the time had come to start knocking down Jane Meadows’ little house of cards. ‘Let’s get back to the twelfth of July, shall we? If those dates are correct, that was the second Thursday after your arrival in Nice. Can you recall what you were doing that day?’

  ‘Now look …’ The composure gave way to anger. ‘I’ve tried to help you as much as I can, but I’m damned if I’m going to sit here answering irrelevant questions. Either you release me or charge me.’

  ‘That’s no problem,’ snapped Fox. ‘D’you imagine that falsifying records of deaths, forging death certificates, making false declarations, blackmail and the theft of one hundred thousand pounds’ worth of jewellery is something that you’re going to walk away from? Well, before you go, Mrs Meadows,’ he continued sarcastically, ‘perhaps you’d like to explain how it was that on the twelfth of July aforementioned, when you claim you were living in a villa in Nice, you managed to draw a hundred pounds from a cash machine in Regent Street in the heart of London’s West End.’

  Jane Meadows leaned forward and stared at the papers on the table in front of Fox. ‘Where the hell did you get those from?’ she asked angrily.

  ‘From your bank.’

  ‘And what gave you the right to inspect our bank account?’ Irritated by Fox’s Cockney accent, she allowed her restraint to slip once more.

  ‘Under a warrant granted by a Crown Court judge,’ said Fox with a helpful smile. ‘And,’ he added, ‘I’m still waiting for your answer, Mrs Meadows.’

  ‘That wasn’t me. It must have been Jeremy.’

  ‘Did he have your cash card, then?’

  ‘Yes, of course he did.’

  ‘I see. And when did he return it to you, Mrs Meadows?’

  ‘He didn’t. He’s still got it.’

  ‘Really?’ Fox smiled at her. ‘How come we found it in your handbag when you were arrested, then?’ Jane Meadows said nothing, just confined herself to a shrug. ‘Two days later, that is, on the fourteenth of July,’ continued Fox, ‘you purchased a blonde wig from a shop in Regent Street.’

  Again there was a brief spasm of surprise as the thoroughness of the police enquiries became apparent to the girl. ‘So what?’ she demanded truculently.

  ‘Why buy a blonde wig?’

  ‘I like to be able to change my appearance from time to time,’ she blurted out, but then chewed her lip in anguish as she realised the implications of what she had just said.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Fox. ‘But what happened to the one you already had?’

  ‘I lost it.’

  ‘So you did have one previously?’

  Too late, the girl realised that Fox had trapped her. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

  ‘What happened there, then? Blow off in a gale, did it? Or did you just happen to leave it in a Jaguar XJ6 driven by one James Murchison?’ Fox let that rhetorical question hang in the air for a moment or two. ‘The linkman at the hotel can identify you, Mrs Meadows,’ he continued. He didn’t think that there was much chance of that, but he threw it in just for the hell of it. ‘D’you know,’ he added, ‘it’s a fatal mistake for a glamorous woman to commit a crime. Male witnesses tend to remember her. Furthermore,’ he continued, ‘it is my intention to take samples of your hair in order that a scientific comparison can be made between them and the hair found inside the blonde wig recovered from the possession of James Murchison when he was arrested. You can either gi
ve those samples voluntarily, or I shall seek — and undoubtedly obtain — a justice’s order to take them.’

  ‘I want a solicitor.’ All the fight had gone.

  ‘I think you’re very wise, Mrs Meadows, because this time you’re going down the steps.’ Fox smiled at a sudden thought. ‘D’you know,’ he said, ‘if your husband gets full remission for good conduct, he’ll just be coming out when you’re going in.’

  Chapter Twenty

  The prison officer returned to the gate lodge from the inner office. ‘Sorry, guv,’ he said, ‘but Murchison is refusing to be interviewed by police any further.’

  Fox nodded. That, of course, was the right of a prisoner on remand. It was one of many rules that had been designed to protect criminals from their just desserts. But it would take more than that to dissuade a detective of Fox’s experience. ‘Is that a fact?’ he said. ‘Well, perhaps you’d be so good as to pop back and tell our Mr Murchison that he can either talk to me, or I’ll send an escort to take him back to Bow Street where I shall take great delight in charging him with several additional serious offences.’ It was an empty threat. Once a prisoner was remanded into the custody of a prison governor it was very difficult to get him out again. But Murchison probably wouldn’t know that. ‘Mind you,’ Fox added, ‘I shall hotly deny ever having said such a thing.’ Then he grinned.

  So did the prison officer. ‘It’ll be a pleasure, guv,’ he said. ‘Hang on.’

  A sullen Murchison was escorted into the interview room. ‘What’s all this crap about?’ he asked, slumping into a chair.

  Fox did not believe in going straight to the nub of an enquiry, not when he had plenty of other material to use. He much preferred to approach the apogee slowly, metaphorically zig-zagging, and allowing his suspect to lay his own land-mines … and eventually step on them. ‘When you drove hell-for-leather from the hotel, Jim —’ he began.

  ‘I never admitted that I —’

  ‘Don’t interrupt, Jim, it’s rude,’ said Fox. ‘Apart from which, you did admit it. Would you like Mr Gilroy to read out the answers you made on a previous occasion?’ Fox waited expectantly, but Murchison said nothing. ‘When you left the hotel, you conveyed two persons, now known to be the lovely Jane Meadows and the late Donald Dixon, to Marble Arch.’