Gunrunner Page 4

  On the afternoon of the day after Boxing Day, Dave and I made our way to Heathrow Airport in good time to meet the aircraft that should be bringing Nick Hammond back to England from New York. Don Keegan, the relief incident room manager, had done something he called ‘trawling the Internet’ and discovered that the flight in which we were interested was estimated to land twenty minutes earlier than its scheduled time of three o’clock. Even so, I made a point of getting there at two o’clock. In my experience, aeroplanes are unpredictable beasts and could arrive much earlier or much later than they were supposed to.

  As it happened, Hammond’s aircraft did in fact touch down at twenty minutes to three, having benefited from a tailwind across the Atlantic. I’d made contact with the Port Watch police at the airport, and one of the unit’s sergeants accompanied Dave and me to the arrivals area. Even though Dave had already done so, the sergeant then alerted the Border Agency officers to our interest so that they could identify Hammond for me, but it turned out to be unnecessary.

  At five past three, the passengers started to trickle through the control. I immediately recognized the tall figure of Nick Hammond from the wedding photograph we had taken from his house at Barnes. Waiting until he had cleared the control, Dave and I approached him.

  ‘Mr Nicholas Hammond?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, I am he.’ Hammond looked nervous. But so do most people arriving at an airport when they’re stopped by a couple of officials.

  ‘We’re police officers, Mr Hammond. We’d like a word with you.’

  ‘Is it about my wife?’

  ‘Why should you think that?’ asked Dave.

  Hammond dropped his carry-on bag. ‘Well, she didn’t turn up here on Christmas Eve, and she didn’t arrive in New York either. Has something happened to her?’

  The Port Watch sergeant touched my arm. ‘Would you like to use our office, sir?’

  ‘Yes please, Skip.’

  The sergeant led the way through a deserted customs hall and into a small office that had one-way windows large enough to see all that was happening in the arrivals area.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘If there’s anything you need, I’m only in the next office. Just give me a shout.’

  ‘What’s this all about?’ demanded Hammond, when the three of us were alone.

  ‘Mr Hammond, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock of New Scotland Yard,’ I began, ‘and this is DS Poole. I’m sorry to have to tell you that your wife is dead.’

  ‘Oh God, no! She can’t be.’ Hammond’s face drained of colour, and he immediately started to perspire as he sank back into a chair before shooting off a number of staccato questions and statements. ‘What happened? Was it an accident? She always tended to drive that damned car too fast. I’ve often told her to slow down. I knew something like this would happen.’

  Interesting reaction, I thought.Why should he assume that a senior detective from the Yard would be involved in telling relatives about a fatal traffic accident? Perhaps he watches too much television.

  ‘No, Mr Hammond, she was murdered, here at the airport.’

  Hammond’s mouth dropped open. ‘Murdered? Who murdered her? Was it a robbery?’

  ‘We’re still attempting to establish who murdered her and why, but I’m satisfied that robbery wasn’t the motive. Your wife was in possession of a substantial sum of money, her credit cards, and some quite expensive jewellery, all of which we found with her.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. Why? Why should anyone want to kill Kerry?’

  ‘I was hoping that you might be able to help me there, Mr Hammond,’ I said. ‘As I understand it, you were meant to meet your wife here on Christmas Eve and that you and she had planned to go to New York together.’

  ‘Yes, that’s quite right, but I had a last minute business meeting in London, and to make matters worse the bloody deal fell through. I’d telephoned her early that afternoon asking her to meet me here, but she didn’t show up.’

  ‘But you went to New York, nevertheless,’ said Dave incredulously. He obviously found such behaviour difficult to understand.

  ‘Yes. I rang her again from here, several times, but I got no answer from her mobile. I left her ticket with the check-in people and asked them to tell her to get the flight if she made it in time, or to get the next available one if there was a spare seat. But I heard nothing. Aircraft at this time of year are usually fully booked, though, and I presumed that she couldn’t get a flight. I tried ringing her mobile again from New York, but there was still no answer.’

  ‘Did it not occur to you that perhaps you should’ve waited, Mr Hammond?’ I suggested. ‘That something might have happened to her.’

  Hammond gave me a baleful look. ‘If only I had,’ he said, ‘I might’ve prevented this awful tragedy.’

  ‘I doubt that you would’ve done,’ I said. ‘Mrs Hammond’s body was found in her car in one of the airport’s car parks. She’d been stabbed, and we think she was murdered shortly after arriving here on Christmas Eve. She didn’t even get the chance to make it to the terminal.’

  ‘But who would’ve done such a thing?’ Hammond shook his head in bewilderment as he repeated his question.

  ‘Did the two of you often travel to places separately?’ asked Dave. ‘Or was this a one-off?’

  ‘We’re both heavily involved in businesses of our own,’ said Hammond. ‘I’m an estate agent with offices in the West End, and Kerry’s the owner of a very successful haulage business.’

  ‘Does the name Gary Dixon mean anything to you?’ I asked, hoping that by a change of questioning I’d catch Hammond on the hop.

  But he answered without hesitation; in fact, almost too quickly, and that made me suspicious. ‘No, should it? Why d’you ask?’

  ‘No particular reason,’ I said. ‘It’s just a name that came up in the course of our enquiries.’ I had no intention of telling Hammond of the frequent telephone calls that Dixon had made to Kerry Hammond’s mobile, even after he’d been sacked by Bernard Bligh. It was quite possible that Kerry and Dixon were having an affair that Hammond knew nothing about, and I had no wish to add to his distress. ‘Or Miguel Rodriguez? Does that name mean anything to you?’

  ‘Oh yes, I know him,’ said Hammond. ‘He owns the Spanish Fly nightclub in Mayfair. Kerry and I often went there, when we had the time. We both have pretty heavy schedules.’

  I stood up. ‘I don’t think there’s anything else to ask you at the moment, Mr Hammond, but we shall need to see you again.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘There is one other thing. If you have no objection, I’ll need to see your wife’s bank statements at some time.’ What I didn’t say was that if he did object, I’d get a warrant.

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘It’s a routine part of a murder enquiry, Mr Hammond,’ I said. ‘At the moment we are looking for a motive, and it might have something to do with money. I imagine that your wife was a rich woman.’

  ‘Yes, she was,’ said Hammond pensively, ‘and she had a separate account; separate from mine, I mean, but I’ll get the details out for you. Where would you like me to send them?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Dave. ‘We’ll collect them next time we see you, which will probably be in the next day or two. Are you likely to be at home? You live in Barnes, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll either be there or at my office,’ said Hammond. He produced a business card, and scribbled his home phone number on the back.

  ‘One other thing, Mr Hammond,’ I said, as I pocketed the card, ‘do you happen to know if Kerry’s parents are still alive and, if so, where they live? They’ll have to be informed, you see.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Hammond gave us an address in Henley-on-Thames. ‘They’re a Mr and Mrs King, Charles and Diana. Charles is something to do with insurance. He’s done quite well out of it, I should think, if their lifestyle’s anything to go by.’

  ‘How are you getting back to
Barnes?’ I asked. ‘D’you have a car here?’

  ‘No, I came by train. It saves all the hassle of parking, and ploughing my way through the traffic. It’s just as well; I don’t feel much like driving now. Is that it, for now?’

  ‘Yes, it is, thank you.’

  Hammond picked up his overnight bag and left the office, his shoulders sagging and his head down.

  ‘What d’you think, guv?’ asked Dave, once the door had closed behind Kerry’s husband.

  ‘I don’t know, Dave. He could be a bloody good actor, but he seemed genuinely taken aback by the news.’

  ‘I wonder if their marriage was all that the Maitlands reckoned it was,’ said Dave. ‘What’s more, I wonder who gets control of Kerry Trucking now that Mrs Hammond is dead. That might give us a motive.’

  ‘Good point, Dave,’ I said. ‘It’s something we shall have to find out in due course. Bligh suggested that they had the occasional tiff, but there’s nothing unusual about that,’ I added, speaking from bitter experience.

  ‘I still think he’s sus, just pushing off to the States like that, even though his wife didn’t turn up. I reckon he topped his missus and went to the Big Apple to have a dirty Christmas with some bird. If it’d been Madeleine, I’d’ve been worried sick and I certainly wouldn’t have got on a plane to New York without knowing what had happened to her.’

  I could understand Dave’s viewpoint. His wife Madeleine was a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet. She was five foot two and gorgeous.

  ‘Nice theory, Dave, but it’ll take some proving.’

  ‘NYPD might help, guv,’ said Dave, unwilling to relinquish the tenuous proposition he’d made earlier about asking the New York police for assistance.

  ‘And what sort of answer d’you think you’d get, Dave? How about, “Sure thing, bud. Here in New York’s Finest we’ve got so many detectives doing nothing that we tail every visiting foreigner to see if he’s screwing someone else’s wife.”’

  ‘Only a thought, guv,’ said Dave moodily. ‘What do we do next?’

  ‘We’re only about a half hour’s drive from Henley, Dave. We’ll go and speak to Kerry’s parents. Once we’ve done that, we’ll find Gary Dixon, and we’ll have a word with Miguel Rodriguez, owner of the Spanish Fly.’

  FOUR

  ‘The house occupied by the Kings, Kerry’s parents, certainly bore out what Nicholas Hammond had said about their lifestyle. It was a large, red-brick detached house set back from the road in what was clearly a select part of Henley. As we stopped at the end of the Kings’ lengthy drive, our headlights shone on a blue Bentley Infiniti parked in front of a double garage. The car’s registration mark indicated that it was this year’s model.

  ‘You won’t get much change out of forty grand for that beauty,’ said Dave, as he parked our bottom-of-the-range CID runabout next to it.

  A young woman, probably in her twenties, answered the door. She was tall and slender with short blonde, carefully-styled hair, and all her curves were in the right places. Her blue eyes gazed at us enquiringly.

  ‘May I help you, please?’

  ‘Good afternoon,’ I said. ‘I’d like to speak to Mr and Mrs King.’

  ‘May I ask who you are?’ The request was delivered in almost perfect English, but with a slight accent that sounded vaguely Scandinavian. I imagined her to be an au pair, or whatever they call home helps these days.

  ‘We’re police officers, miss,’ I said.

  ‘Please come in.’ The girl opened the door wide, and we stepped into a white-tiled hall. There was a large circular table in the centre, and a broad staircase that wound its way up one wall leading to a gallery that ran the full width of the far end. There were several doors off this gallery that I imagined led to bedrooms.

  ‘This guy must be worth a mint, guv,’ whispered Dave, gazing round at the sheer opulence of the Kings’ residence.

  The girl disappeared into a room on the right, but returned almost immediately. ‘Please come this way,’ she said, leading us into the room she’d just left. ‘The police officers, Mr King,’ she announced.

  ‘Thank you, Ingrid.’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Brock from Scotland Yard, sir,’ I said, by way of introduction, ‘and this is Detective Sergeant Poole.’

  ‘I’m Charles King.’ The speaker was a tall man, probably in his early sixties. Casually dressed, he was wearing tan-coloured trousers and a polo-necked cashmere sweater. ‘This is my wife, Diana.’ He took a hand out his pocket to indicate a middle-aged grey-haired woman, very much of the twinset and pearls variety, who was reclining in an armchair. ‘Please sit down.’ He remained standing in front of the York-stone fireplace in which a log fire was burning. There was a Christmas tree in the corner, its fairy lights making a bright addition to the soft illumination of the two or three table lamps that were dotted around the room. ‘Is there some sort of trouble, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news, Mr King,’ I said, as I started on the difficult task that policemen dislike the most. ‘It’s about your daughter Kerry.’

  ‘Oh good Lord! What’s she been up to now?’ A half smile played around King’s lips.

  There was no easy way. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that she was found murdered in a car park at Heathrow Airport on Christmas Day.’

  ‘Murdered?’ The smile on King’s face was instantly replaced by a stunned look of disbelief.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ I glanced at Mrs King. She was sitting perfectly still, a slight frown on her face, but displaying no immediate reaction to the tragic news that I’d just delivered. It appeared very much as though she was unable to take it in.

  ‘God, this is awful.’ Charles King crossed the room to a table and poured himself a large brandy with a trembling hand. He turned and glanced at me, the decanter still in his hand. ‘I’m sorry, would you like something?’

  ‘No thank you, sir,’ I said.

  ‘You say that Kerry was murdered.’ King crossed the room a little unsteadily and sat down in the armchair next to his wife’s. ‘What are the circumstances, Chief Inspector?’ he asked, resting his brandy glass on the arm.

  ‘She was found in her car, Mr King, and she’d been stabbed. Beyond that, there is very little I can tell you at this stage.’

  ‘Has Nick been told?’ King took a sip of brandy.

  ‘We’ve just come from the airport, sir,’ said Dave. ‘We met Mr Hammond off a New York flight and broke the news to him.’ He went on to explain how Nicholas Hammond had left for the United States on Christmas Eve, but that his wife hadn’t shown up.

  ‘D’you mean he went on his own?’ King sounded incredulous. ‘We knew they were going to New York for Christmas, but we naturally assumed that they’d be going together.’

  I explained about Hammond’s excuse that he’d had a deal to settle.

  ‘Damned funny business,’ muttered King. ‘Are you saying that he actually went to America without knowing what had happened to Kerry?’

  ‘It would appear so, Mr King,’ I said.

  ‘I never liked that man,’ said Diana King, speaking for the first time since our arrival. She looked sideways at her husband. ‘I think I could do with a drink, Charles.’

  King crossed to the table and prepared a gin and tonic for his wife.

  ‘What didn’t you like about him, Mrs King?’ I looked at her; despite a valiant attempt to hide her grief, the tears had started to come. She took a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed irritably at her eyes, annoyed that she was unable to control her emotions.

  ‘I think he was seeing other women. And he never looked you in the eye when you were speaking to him. He was nothing like her first husband, Dick Lucas. We liked him very much. He was killed in a car crash, you know.’ Diana King took the glass from her husband and sipped at it.

  ‘So I understand. We spoke to the Hammonds’ neighbours, Mr and Mrs Maitland, on Christmas Day, and they told us about the accident.’

  ‘If Ker
ry was found on Christmas Day why has it taken so long for you to tell us, Chief Inspector?’ asked King, sitting down again. It wasn’t so much a criticism as a genuine enquiry.

  ‘We didn’t know where you lived until we spoke to Mr Hammond earlier today,’ I said. ‘Your address wasn’t among her possessions, and the Maitlands didn’t know it.’

  ‘Yes, I see. I quite understand.’

  ‘As a matter of interest, had your daughter always lived at Elite Drive?’

  ‘Yes. She and Dick moved in there when they were first married.’ King finished his brandy and returned to the table for a refill. ‘Do you have any idea who might have killed our daughter?’ he asked, as he sat down again.

  ‘Not at this stage, Mr King, no. This might sound like a pointless question, but are you aware of anyone who might’ve wanted to kill her?’

  ‘No,’ said Diana King, answering the question. ‘She was a bubbly, outgoing sort of girl. Did very well at university.’ Once again, she dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘Which one?’ asked Dave.

  ‘Cambridge. She got her degree in economics and then went on to do a postgraduate course in business management. She took over the company when Dick died. It’s a haulage company in West London somewhere . . .’ Diana King paused. ‘Where is it, Charles?’

  ‘Chiswick,’ said King.

  ‘What sort of woman was your daughter?’ I asked, hoping to learn a little more of her background and lifestyle. In fact, anything that might help us to find her killer.

  Charles King seemed to weigh the question carefully before answering. ‘Pretty much what you’d expect a girl in her early thirties to be, I suppose,’ he said eventually. ‘Her first marriage was a very happy one, and it was an absolute tragedy when Dick died. I don’t think she ever really recovered from it. She seemed to change after that happened, got harder somehow. Whether it was that or the fact that she’d taken over the company and become a hard-headed businesswoman, I couldn’t really tell.’