Tomfoolery Read online

‘That’s what I’m attempting to find out,’ said Purvis patiently.

  ‘Well, I don’t quite see how I —’

  ‘Perhaps if you were able to tell me when he was last seen at the club …’

  Carfax looked pensive. ‘I can probably tell from the Greens Register when he last played,’ he said, ‘but he may have popped in just for a drink after that. A lot of members do, you know.’ Then, as an afterthought, he asked, ‘D’you play, at all?’

  ‘No,’ said Purvis.

  ‘Mmm!’ said Carfax. ‘Well, I’ll have a look.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Purvis. ‘That would be a start.’

  ‘Shan’t keep you a moment, then,’ said Carfax and strode from the office. A few minutes later he was back, holding a piece of paper. ‘Looks like Saturday the seventh of July.’

  ‘That’s nearly a fortnight ago.’

  ‘Very likely,’ said Carfax mysteriously. There was a vacant expression on his face. ‘But, as I said, he may have been in for a drink …’ He spoke the last few words in a distracted way as he rose slowly from his chair and peered out of the window. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘the club captain’s just arrived.’

  Purvis turned as a large cream BMW crunched to a standstill on the gravel outside the secretary’s office window.

  ‘Might be a good idea if you were to have a word with him,’ said Carfax. ‘Keeps his finger on the social pulse of the club, don’t you know.’

  Purvis followed the club secretary through into the bar just as the captain was raising a large gin and tonic to his lips.

  ‘Oh, Captain, this is Detective Sergeant Purvis,’ said Carfax.

  The gin and tonic never quite made it. The Captain placed his glass firmly on the bar and turned. ‘First today, old boy,’ he said with a guilty grin, and shook hands vigorously. ‘Charles Fowler, club captain. What can I get you to drink?’

  ‘Nothing, thanks. I’m driving.’

  Fowler laughed. ‘Yes, but you’re a copper. You don’t have to worry, surely?’

  ‘If I get caught, I get the sack,’ said Purvis. He did not like the Charles Fowlers of this world.

  ‘Ah! Yes, I see. Sauce for the gander and all that, I suppose.’ Fowler laughed, but not very convincingly. ‘Well, what can I do for you, old boy?’

  ‘Thomas Harley.’

  ‘Old Tom. What’s he been up to?’

  ‘We don’t know. That’s why I’m here. I was just explaining to Major Carfax that he’s missing from home … according to his wife.’

  Fowler screwed his face into a frown. ‘Damned funny business. Never knew he had a wife. Got a girlfriend. As a matter of fact, she’s a member here too.’ He paused. ‘Are you sure about that drink, old boy? Just the one won’t hurt, surely?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Purvis could have used a Scotch, but decided, out of sheer bloody-mindedness, that he would refrain. He knew that all the while he wasn’t drinking, Fowler wouldn’t touch his own drink either, not with a car outside, anyway. ‘There’s no possibility that they’re married, is there? Could this girlfriend be his wife?’

  ‘Good God, no,’ said Fowler. ‘She’s called Jane Meadows. Stunning-looking girl.’

  ‘Really?’ Purvis wasn’t surprised to hear that. He had come to the conclusion that Susan Harley was completely devoid of sex-appeal.

  ‘You know Jane Meadows, don’t you, Geoffrey?’ Fowler glanced at Carfax.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Carfax. ‘Often in here.’ He paused. ‘But usually with Tom.’

  ‘When was she last here, do you know?’ asked Purvis.

  Fowler stared at the detective. ‘I thought it was Tom you’d lost.’

  ‘So it is, but this might be relevant.’

  ‘About ten days ago. With Tom, I think. A Saturday it was.’

  ‘Could you describe her?’

  ‘A rather gorgeous blonde, actually. Quite a figure, believe me —’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Oh, let me see. Thirty at most, I’d say,’ Fowler paused and then signalled to the barman. ‘Dennis, have you still got those photographs behind the bar? The ones we had taken after that Pro-Am thing in the spring.’

  ‘They’re in the office, sir. Won’t keep you a moment.’

  ‘We’ve not done it before,’ said Fowler while they were waiting for the barman.

  ‘Not done what before?’

  ‘Hired a professional photographer to take candid camera shots.’ Fowler paused. ‘That’s just reminded me,’ he said. ‘The only chap who objected was Tom Harley. I’d forgotten all about that.’

  ‘Why should he object?’

  ‘No idea. But now you tell me he’s got a wife, he might not have wanted …’ Fowler grinned. ‘Well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘I can only find the one, sir,’ said the barman, returning with a bulky photograph album.

  ‘I think that’s all there was, Dennis. Now, should be here somewhere.’ Fowler started to flip through the pages. ‘Had these up in the bar for weeks, then we bunged them in a book. You know what people are like. Love to buy photographs of themselves getting sloshed. Ah! Here we are.’ He prodded a photograph. ‘That’s the boy.’ He half turned the album. ‘There he is. That’s Tom. And that …’ He reached across and pointed. ‘And that is Jane Meadows.’

  Purvis looked closely at the photograph. ‘Good-looking girl.’

  ‘Plays off ten,’ said Fowler. He was obviously more impressed by the girl’s handicap than her sexual attraction. ‘Damned odd, though,’ he continued. ‘Tom having a wife. Never mentioned it.’ He shook his head. It could have been wonderment, but it might just have been envy that Harley had managed to have a wife and a mistress. He glanced at the club secretary. ‘I say, Geoffrey, that’s not on, is it? Using the club for womanising.’

  Purvis grinned at that. ‘I wonder if I might keep this photograph, sir?’

  ‘Have the lot, old boy. We were going to sling them out anyway.’

  ‘D’you happen to have an address for this Jane Meadows, Mr Fowler?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we do. Geoffrey, you’ll have that in that complex filing system of yours, won’t you?’

  ‘On the computer,’ said Carfax. ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘Now, are you sure you won’t change your mind and have a drink?’ said Fowler.

  ‘Well,’ said Purvis slowly, ‘perhaps I will.’

  ‘Splendid.’ Fowler took a gulp of gin and tonic. ‘What can I get you, then?’

  ‘Tomato juice, please,’ said Purvis.

  Chapter Three

  When it became apparent that DS Percy Fletcher’s informants were not coming up with the goods on James Murchison, Fox took a hand. ‘Spider,’ he barked into the phone, ‘I want to see you.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ enquired a suspicious voice.

  ‘Don’t ponce about, Spider, you know bloody well who it is. Meet me in the Albert at half past two.’

  ‘That’s a bit close to you-know-where.’

  ‘If you mean the Yard, Spider, it’s bloody near on top of it, but I’m feeling idle today. Be there.’ Fox slammed down the receiver.

  *

  Dressed as usual with a total disregard for the weather, the raincoated figure of Spider Walsh, clutching a roughly furled umbrella, edged slowly through the door of the pub and peered round. Fox, seated in a corner, looked at the ceiling in exasperation.

  Walsh bought himself a pint of Guiness and after an unconvincing display of indecision sat down near Fox. But not too near.

  ‘Come here,’ said Fox.

  Walsh moved reluctantly. ‘I don’t like it, Mr Fox,’ he said.

  ‘D’you have to bugger about like that every time I meet you?’ said Fox. ‘You waste one hell of a lot of time.’

  ‘I don’t like it, Mr Fox, straight I don’t.’

  ‘You’ve already said that,’ said Fox. ‘But I haven’t arranged this meeting for your pleasure. Nor for mine,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘Now, to business.’ He took a sip of Scotch and lit a cigarette. After
a moment’s hesitation, he dropped one in front of Walsh. ‘I’m looking for Jim Murchison.’

  ‘Who?’ Walsh looked genuinely puzzled.

  ‘Something wrong with your hearing?’ asked Fox. ‘Murchison. Got a bit of form for burglary. But it seems he’s moved up in the world. To wit, he has come to the notice of the Flying Squad. And he’s wasting my time and that of my officers.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of him, Mr Fox.’

  ‘Then you’d better start listening around, Spider. I want to know, like yesterday.’ Fox took out a pound coin and laid it on the table in front of Walsh. ‘Buy yourself another pint,’ he said.

  Walsh looked at the coin. ‘Here, Mr Fox,’ he said, ‘a pint costs more than —’

  But Fox had gone.

  *

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Detective Chief Inspector Barker impatiently.

  ‘I got an address from the club for this Jane Meadows, sir,’ said Purvis. ‘It’s Mrs Meadows apparently.’ He stressed the marital status.

  ‘Well, you’d better shove off and see what you can find out,’ said Barker. ‘Although why the hell we’re wasting time on a missing person I don’t know,’ he added. ‘It’s pretty obvious that Harley’s decided to trade in the dowdy Susan for a decent-looking bird.’

  *

  Detective Sergeant Purvis had been a policeman for ten years. He had passed the inspectors’ examination and was sweating on a promotion board, which is why he had to take all this trouble with a tuppenny-ha’penny enquiry that was a waste of everyone’s time. At least that was what Barker had said, but if it went wrong it would be Purvis’s career that would suffer, not Barker’s.

  He rang the bell twice before a woman came to the door. Two children, a boy and a girl, clung to her skirt. The boy had a dirty face and gazed up at the detective with a screwed-up expression.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was looking for Mrs Meadows.’

  ‘She doesn’t live here any more. Moved out a year ago.’

  The woman had given Purvis the name of the estate agent through whom she and her husband had purchased the flat. Next morning Purvis rang them. They had no address for Jane Meadows. But they gave him the telephone number of the solicitor. The solicitor either didn’t know or wouldn’t say.

  ‘That’s that, then,’ said Barker. ‘But there is one more avenue you can try.’

  ‘Like what, sir?’

  ‘The DSS. They might have a record of Harley’s employment. Not that there’s much chance that he’s still there. If you draw a blank, give it a few days and then circulate the details in Police Gazette.’

  As far as Barker was concerned the enquiry was over. He — and Purvis — had done all they could.

  *

  ‘Just had a report of another one, sir.’ Gilroy held out the message form.

  ‘Another what?’ asked Fox.

  ‘Another jewellery heist, same method as the one we’re looking at. But the take was nothing like as big.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Hotel just outside Windsor, sir.’

  ‘Windsor!’ Fox snorted the word. ‘That’s Thames Valley police area.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Damn it all,’ said Fox. ‘These villains seem to know nothing about police boundaries. Don’t they know that that makes it unnecessarily complicated, blast ’em.’

  Gilroy nodded sympathetically. ‘Yes, sir,’ he murmured.

  ‘Get on to it, Jack, there’s a good fellow. Find out what it’s all about.’

  Gilroy retrieved the message flimsy. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

  *

  DCI Barker put down his pen and looked up at DS Purvis.

  ‘Nothing from the DSS, sir. They gave me the name of a firm of insurance brokers in the City, but he hasn’t worked there for about two years. That’s the last record of UK employment they have. File’s marked “Gone abroad”.’

  ‘Bloody terrific.’

  ‘But something might come of this.’ Purvis held out a tabloid newspaper.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘There’s a bit about Harley’s disappearance, guv.’ Purvis laid the paper on Barker’s desk.

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Not a lot. Just that he’s been reported missing by his wife and that police are making enquiries.’

  ‘Where did they get that from? His wife?’

  Purvis shook his head. ‘No, sir. I rang her and asked.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Did her nut, guv.’

  ‘Strange,’ said Barker. ‘I said at the time that she didn’t want him found.’

  ‘She put it firmly down to us, sir.’

  ‘And was it down to us?’ Barker looked accusingly at his sergeant.

  ‘No way, guv. Leastways, not me. Probably down to that gin-swilling pillock Fowler that I spoke to at the golf club.’ Barker shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm,’ he said. ‘Except that we’ll now have the Press on our backs, and sightings from Land’s End to John o’Groats that’ll have to be looked into.’ He sighed. ‘Why can’t the Uniform Branch do their own bloody jobs once in a while?’

  *

  ‘It’s a blow-out, guv.’

  ‘What’s a blow-out, Jack?’ asked Fox.

  ‘The Windsor job. They’ve nicked a bloke for it. Trying to flog the gear at a jeweller’s in Maidenhead.’

  Fox moved his perpetual calendar a fraction of an inch. ‘Why is it, Jack, that these outside forces always get the easy jobs?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s because these second-rate villains know better than to come up to the Smoke and tangle with you, guv’nor,’ said Gilroy with a grin.

  Fox nodded gravely. ‘You’re right, of course, Jack. Absolutely right. Incidentally, has this villain got anything to do with our job?’

  ‘Not a chance, guv. He’s only just come out. He was in Reading jail when our heist took place.’

  Fox smirked. ‘Didn’t write ballads by any chance, did he?’

  ‘Pardon?’ said Gilroy.

  Detective Sergeant Purvis laid a newspaper on his DCI’s desk. ‘They’ve gone one better this morning, guv’nor,’ he said. ‘There’s a picture of Tom Harley in today’s paper.’

  ‘Where the hell did they get that from? I’ll bet it wasn’t his wife. Didn’t ring back to say she’d found one, did she?’ Barker frowned. He had enough serious crime to investigate without looking for a missing businessman whom he was convinced had run away with Jane Meadows, the gorgeous-looking blonde.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Purvis. ‘I’m pretty sure that this is another one from the club’s spring Pro-Am thrash. It’s only a blow-up of his head and shoulders, but you can see he was wearing a dinner jacket.’

  ‘I thought you said that you’d got all those photographs.’ Barker studied his sergeant suspiciously.

  ‘Fowler said that’s all there was, but now I come to think of it the barman mentioned something about only being able to find one book. If they did find another one Fowler might have flogged it to the Press. Or Carfax … or even Dennis the barman, I suppose.’

  ‘Cynical mind you’ve got,’ said Barker thoughtfully.

  *

  ‘It’s Mr Hawkins,’ said the voice of the hotel manager on the phone. ‘Is that Mr Fox?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Hawkins. What can I do for you?’

  ‘There was a photograph in the paper this morning of someone called Harley, Thomas Harley. It said that he was missing from home.’

  ‘Really, Mr Hawkins? I can’t say that I’ve seen it.’ Fox sighed. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, I’ve shown it to several members of my staff, Mr Fox, and we’re all agreed that it’s Wilkins.’

  ‘Wilkins?’

  ‘Yes, you know, the receptionist who disappeared from the hotel on the day of the robbery.’

  ‘Really?’ said Fox, his interest aroused. ‘How fascinating. And which newspaper was this in?’

  Fox slammed down the phone and marched into the ma
in office of the Flying Squad, an appearance that was immediately greeted with an expectant hush. For a moment he looked round, then started sorting through the various newspapers that littered the desks.

  ‘Help you, guv?’ asked a detective sergeant.

  ‘I’m looking for a newspaper,’ said Fox darkly. ‘One of you low-life layabouts must read the rag I want.’

  *

  Detective Chief Inspector Maurice Barker was having lunch, in the senior officers’ dining room at the top of Kingston police station, when the telephone rang. A uniformed inspector answered it, then held the receiver out. ‘It’s for you, sir,’ he said to Barker.

  Barker paused and then put a potato in his mouth. ‘It’s my bloody lunch-time,’ he said. ‘Tell them I’ll ring them back.’

  ‘It’s Detective Chief Superintendent Fox of the Flying Squad, sir.’

  Barker stood up abruptly. ‘I’ll speak to him,’ he said.

  *

  ‘Ah, Tommy, good afternoon.’ Commander Alec Myers, who had charge of several branches of the Criminal Investigation Department at the Yard including the Flying Squad, was Fox’s boss.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’

  ‘This walk-in theft of jewellery, Tommy …’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘We’re still looking for Murchison, who was probably the wheelman, guv. The lads are out and about talking to faces. He’ll come … in the fullness.’

  Myers nodded knowingly. ‘And Wilkins, the missing receptionist from the hotel?’

  ‘Not found him yet either, sir, but enquiries are continuing.’

  ‘But surely there’s been an interesting development there, Tommy? Might he not be identical with a missing businessman called Harley? On Kingston’s ground?’

  Fox looked at Myers with a crafty expression on his face. ‘Oh, you’ve heard about that, sir?’

  Myers smiled. ‘I’ve just been talking to the Commander CID Five Area about it, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘I’m not wholly convinced that there’s a connection, sir.’

  ‘You mean you don’t think that they’re identical?’ Myers leaned back with a half smile on his face. He had known Tommy Fox for twenty years and enjoyed playing him along as he might a recalcitrant fish that had been well and truly hooked.