48 Hours - A City of London Thriller Page 17

  Chapter 51

  No. 2 Parliament St, London. Friday, 8:30am.

  It had been a long night, and Arthur Hickstead had slept for a maximum of an hour or two of it. The two hours he had managed to sleep at all had been snatched in fifteen minute spells.

  Yesterday afternoon and evening had been hectic. He had spent most of the time online, and on the phone to his bank, trying to send Van Aart his money back. Hickstead had explained about the mugging and Van Aart had seemed sympathetic. Nevertheless, he explained that the buyers he had lined up would be looking for compensation. Eventually the Peer decided that it was not in his best interests to upset one of Europe’s most violent gang leaders. As a result, he had lost the diamonds and one hundred thousand Euros of his own. He had risked his liberty to blackmail that slippery loss adjuster and recover the insurance money he had been denied after his house had caught fire, only to end up worse off than he had been before. If he hadn’t already had a hangover he would have had a drink to settle his nerves.

  The console on the wall buzzed. It was Jeff, the doorman. The Peer picked up the handset.

  “Lord Hickstead,” he announced.

  “Sir, we have two police detectives at the door who say they have recovered your briefcase.”

  Hickstead could feel the panic rising in his midriff. He had to stay calm; he could talk his way out of this. He took a deep breath.

  “OK, Jeff, send them up, please.”

  ***

  DCI Coombes and DS Scott rode up to the fourth floor on what was the oldest and most elegant elevator they had ever seen. It had rich dark walnut panelling and a burnished brass console with worn enamelled buttons bearing the numbers of each floor. The door was a pair of iron lattice gates which had to be pulled across before the lift would move. A plate in the elevator proclaimed that the Otis Elevator Company had installed the lift in 1904. DCI Coombes was holding the briefcase in a clear plastic bag and so DS Scott operated the lift. As they arrived at the fourth floor, and opened the lattice gates, a door opened in front of them. They stepped out, then DS Scott closed the gates and the lift departed.

  The detectives tapped on the apartment door and entered, closing it behind them.

  “This way, gentlemen,” a voice called from inside the apartment.

  As they walked into what was probably called a sitting room, they marvelled at the ornate decor which was probably original. The painted walls were earthy colours but were not necessarily what one might choose for a modern house. Somehow, though, they seemed to work in these 19th Century surroundings.

  Lord Hickstead was sitting in a high backed winged armchair with green leather upholstery; buttons secured the leather to the chair. He gestured to them to sit down on a matching Chesterfield sofa.

  “It’s a beautiful place, isn’t it?” Lord Hickstead said as he looked around. “One could be in a country house anywhere in England. Sadly, it’s not mine.” He smiled and looked at the briefcase.

  “I’m DCI Coombes and this is Detective Sergeant Scott. We believe that we have found your stolen briefcase.”

  “Oh, good,” Hickstead responded, trying his best to sound pleased. “I’m delighted. Are my papers still inside? They are quite confidential.”

  “No, I’m afraid not, but shall we take a look inside, so that you can be sure that the case is yours?” DCI Coombes carefully set the briefcase down on a glass topped table in front of him. He suspected that if he broke the table it would cost his monthly salary to replace it. He looked at their host.

  “This is your briefcase, isn’t it, Lord Hickstead?”

  “Yes, I believe it is, though they all look the same from the outside.”

  “We recovered the briefcase when the mugger eventually confessed that he had discarded it as he was being chased,” Coombes explained. “It was found less than a hundred yards from where you were attacked. It has your fingerprints on the handle, and his on the sides. Once he heard about that, he knew the game was up.”

  Coombes opened the briefcase. Inside lay a sealed Jiffy bag and another sealed envelope addressed by hand to Dr Crippin. The police had carefully resealed the envelopes for the purposes of this morning’s visit.

  “Are these yours, sir?” DS Scott asked. “It’s just that you didn’t mention them in your statement, and we were reluctant to open them without you present.”

  Arthur Hickstead was on the horns of a dilemma. If he denied all knowledge of the envelopes, it meant that he lost the diamonds forever. If he confirmed they were his, he could be linked with the blackmail plots. He had to think quickly.

  “No, they weren’t in there when the case was taken,” he said calmly.

  “Are you quite certain of that, sir?” Coombes asked, looking Hickstead squarely in the eyes.”

  Hickstead felt a quickening of his heart rate. He didn’t like the way this interview was going. Nevertheless, he answered calmly. “That is a puzzle, detective, but not one I can help you with, I’m afraid. Those packages do not belong to me. I’ve never seen them before.”

  DS Scott wrote copiously, being careful to record the Peer’s words accurately.

  “We didn’t want to risk your safety, your Lordship, and so we scanned the packages for incendiary devices,” Coombes said. “They were both cleared, which is why we have brought them here, but I think you might be rather sorry you didn’t claim ownership of the Jiffy bag. That is, of course, if the scanner operator is right in his assumption as to what it contains.”

  Coombes opened the Jiffy bag and slid out the velvet pouch. He closed the briefcase, and very carefully he tipped the diamonds onto the brown leather lid.

  “Bloody hell!” DS Scott exclaimed, acting his part well, and then added somewhat sheepishly, “Sorry, Lord Hickstead.”

  “No need to apologise to me, young man. ‘Bloody hell’ seems to cover it rather appropriately,” the Peer replied, gazing at the stones with envy. “I suppose it’s too late for me to claim the Jiffy bag now,” he continued, smiling at his quip, even though he didn’t feel like smiling at all.

  “I’m afraid so, sir. DS Scott, could you take a record photograph, please?”

  “Sorry, guv,” Scott said, shrugging his shoulders. “I didn’t bring the camera with me.” Coombes seemed to be bristling with anger, and Scott added, “You didn’t say anything to me about bringing a camera.”

  The situation seemed as though it might soon become embarrassing and so Lord Hickstead spoke up.

  “Gentlemen, I have a digital camera you can use.” He turned to open a Pilot case behind him. Coombes, unseen by the Peer, winked at Scott. The practised double act had worked again. His Lordship turned back to face them and handed a Nikon Coolpix P100 to the DS.

  Scott took two photographs of the diamonds, and pressed the display button to check that the resulting images were satisfactory. He then pressed the back button surreptitiously, but there were no more photographs on the card. It didn’t matter. They had what they wanted.

  “I’ll transfer the photos from the card onto my eBook,” DS Scott said as he took a tiny Acer Notebook Computer from his bag and slotted the SD card into it.

  ***

  When the stones had been safely restored to their pouch, DCI Coombes turned his attention to the other envelope and spoke solemnly to their host.

  “Sir, I do not mean to offend you in any way, but the scans show that this envelope contains dense photo paper, the type usually associated with Polaroid cameras. Could there be any Polaroid photographs in here that may cause you embarrassment?”

  Lord Hickstead laughed. “If that is your overly polite way of asking whether the photos are of me in indiscreet circumstances, then no. I’m a bit to old for all that sort of thing.”

  “All right, sir, I am now opening the envelope,” Coombes explained, “but I must warn you that the contents could either be innocent or explicit, we have no way of knowing.”

  “I think we are all men of the world here,” Hickstead smiled. “I don’t think I
will be offended.”

  The photos dropped out of the envelope, and DCI Coombes slipped on a pair of cotton gloves and arranged them inside a transparent evidence bag so that they could all be seen. The reality, of course, was that they had all seen them before; indeed, the forensics lab had already extracted Lord Hickstead’s prints from the Polaroids.

  “Lord Hickstead, have you seen any of these photos before, or do they in fact belong to you?” Coombes asked. Scott waited to write down anything His Lordship might say, verbatim, when he denied all knowledge of the photos which carried his fingerprints, as he surely would.

  The photos were in random order, but they all showed a girl, probably in her late teens, evidently inside a house. She appeared in various states of undress with two different men. Only one of the men appeared in the frame at any one time, suggesting that the other was taking the pictures. The girl seemed semi-conscious in most of the shots. Her tired, half closed eyes were unfocussed, her pupils massively dilated. Lines of what might have been cocaine could be seen on the table in front of the sofa the girl was kneeling on. Any one of these photos would end the burgeoning career of a young woman in the public eye and make any serious romantic relationship a thing of the past.

  “No,” Lord Hickstead responded after a moment’s silence. “I have never seen these photographs before. Do you know who she is?”

  DS Scott wrote assiduously in his notebook, as Coombes answered.

  “I’m afraid not, Lord Hickstead. She might be a singer or a film star or something, or she just might be an ordinary girl. I’m afraid I’m not au-fait with current pop culture.”

  Both men looked at DS Scott, who was still in his twenties.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said defensively. “I’m a married man. I have no idea who she is, either.”

  Coombes slipped the evidence back into the briefcase, speaking as he did so.

  “Well, whoever she is, these pictures are unlikely to see the light of day, which is very fortunate for her. They will probably be destroyed, after they have been tested for fingerprints.”

  DS Scott had been watching the Peer closely, waiting for a reaction, and he got it. At the mention of the photos being dusted for fingerprints, the Peer blanched for a moment before regaining his composure.

  “Is it really possible to lift decent fingerprints from photographs?” Hickstead asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Oh, yes,” DS Scott replied. “As a matter of fact, the secretions from the human eccrine glands are particularly responsive to the chemicals used for film emulsions. In the seventies and eighties criminals would use Polaroids to photograph banks and shops when planning robberies and the like. More than one gang has been sent down by their careless handling of Polaroid photos.”

  DCI Coombes stood and offered his hand to Lord Hickstead.

  “Sorry to have taken up your time, sir. We will return the briefcase to you in due course, but I’m afraid it could be a while.”

  “Not to worry, Chief Inspector, it wasn’t expensive. As I explained, I was more interested in recovering my personal papers, which aren’t inside any longer.”

  After the policemen had left, Lord Hickstead collapsed onto the Chesterfield sofa in a rage. He yelled out many obscenities but he didn’t repeat any one of them twice.

 

  Chapter 52

  New Scotland Yard, London. Friday, 10:30am.

  It had been almost a week, one hundred and sixty eight hours to be precise, since I had lost my money, and the net was closing in on my blackmailer. The police told me that the chances of me recovering my money had improved now that they had the diamonds and the frozen bank funds.

  We were standing outside Scotland Yard with its iconic rotating triangular sign above our heads. Dee was on her mobile phone, with a finger in her other ear to try to hear the caller over the noise of the traffic.

  I looked at her closely. She really was beautiful. Her hair was down today and the rich auburn locks were swept back over her shoulder and came to an end at her shoulder blades. Dee was slim but not thin. She was strong, but not muscular. I could easily see how someone might underestimate her. On the surface she was a beauty with a handsome cleavage, flat stomach and legs to die for. I was admiring her derriere when I felt a touch on my arm. Roused from my daydream, I discovered that a Japanese man was addressing me, more in sign language than in words.

  “Please. You take photo. Me and wife?” A small Japanese woman next to him smiled hopefully at me.

  “Of course,” I smiled, nodding at him. He handed me a Sony camera and I framed the picture so that it included the couple and the world famous rotating sign. I showed them the resulting image when it appeared on the screen at the back. The couple seemed happy with the result, and bowed their thanks graciously. I wasn’t sure whether I should bow in return, and ended up half bowing, half nodding.

  A car pulled up and out stepped Inspector Boniface and his boss Chief Superintendant Boddy. Both were wearing immaculate suits.

  Dee finished her call and joined us.

  “Ms Conrad, you look stunning today,” Boddy commented, admiring her tailored suit and tight skirt.

  “Chief Superintendent, you are such a flatterer,” Dee responded as she flirtatiously slipped her arm through his. “Shall we go inside?” she asked as she led the blushing Chief into the building, though I noticed he made no effort to extricate himself. Boniface and I shared a smile.

  ***

  The Assistant Commissioner and DCI Coombes were already in the room when we entered. We briefly reacquainted ourselves, and each took a seat in the same video conference room as before. For the first time I noticed that the room was called the Sir Robert Peel Conference room, after the founder of the police force.

  I listened and made notes as we were updated on the latest developments. The first piece of news made me smile. Europol and the Dutch Police were closing in on Mr Van Aart and a Commissaris Bokhuis confirmed to the Met that Mr Van Aart’s account had just been credited with three hundred and fifty thousand Euros, the money indisputably coming from Lord Hickstead’s coffers. I was not alone in noticing that His Lordship had repaid the Dutch criminal about eighty five thousand pounds more than he had received.

  Coombes explained in great detail what had happened that morning when they returned with the briefcase to Parliament Street. Having seen the Peer’s reactions, the Met detectives were now more convinced than ever that Hickstead was guilty of murdering both Andrew Cuthbertson and Sir Max Rochester.

  The video screen flickered into life, but instead of moving pictures a computer start screen was showing. A disembodied arrow floated across the screen and double clicked. A photo appeared of the diamonds, spread out on the lid of a brown leather briefcase. I was wondering why we were looking at a picture of the diamonds when the arrow clicked on ‘more info’ and the details of the photo came up beside the picture.

  DSC100154

  Nikon Coolpix P100

  Autoflash on. Used.

  1/60th sec

  F5.6

  Lord Hickstead’s Nikon not only matched the previous shots but the numbering showed that the first shot of the diamonds was numbered as picture 100154, the next number in sequence after the shots of Richard Wolsey Keen, which finished at 100153.

  “As you can imagine, bringing in a Peer of the Realm for questioning is a rarity, in fact until the ‘Cash for Questions’ investigation, during the last Parliament, no Lord had been summoned for many years,” the Chief Superintendent told us. “This means that both the Commissioner, who knows Lord Hickstead personally, and the Home Secretary, who has worked with Lord Hickstead in parliamentary committees, really need to be convinced that we have a case. I can happily report that they both agree the time is right to bring our man in for questioning under caution.

  Additionally, we are bringing back Mr Nour and Mr De Montagu for an identity parade, for which Inspector Boniface will also invite an old friend of ours.

  If we can rec
onvene here at three o’clock this afternoon, we should be able to proceed. A car is on its way to pick up His Lordship now. MI5 have confirmed that he is still in the apartment, as they have the responsibility for protecting those premises and their occupants.”

  Dee leaned across and squeezed my hand; she looked as happy as I felt.

 

  Chapter 53

  West London Magistrates & County Court, Talgarth Road, London. Friday, 12 noon.

  Michael Lambaurgh paced restlessly around the small room, wondering what was going on. He had been in this courthouse a dozen times at least, and he had never been locked in a room before. Maybe this was a bad sign. Perhaps community service wasn’t an option this time. He was nervous; this could mean a custodial sentence.

  “Bloody stupid berk! Why did I have to kick the kebab shop door in?” he chastised himself aloud. He had been to the Chelsea match in between drinking sessions that ran from eleven in the morning until two o’clock the following morning. He had been out of his head by the time he decided he wanted a kebab. Unfortunately, by the time he arrived at Kebab Heaven the shop had been closed for an hour, and Michael was starving. In his drunken state he saw the light on in the flat above, and he reasoned that if he banged hard enough on the door they would come down and sell him a kebab. So he banged on the door.

  Unfortunately for Michael, however, he always seemed to be unlucky with the police, and at that moment a patrol car had been passing by. The policemen, who recognised him, got out of their car to try to persuade him to go home. They were tired of arresting him, but one thing led to another and, in a fury, he kicked the door of the kebab shop, shattering the bottom pane of glass.

  Now, three months later, here he was in the modern brick built courthouse with the grey architectural cladding. It was nicer than most of the magistrates’ courts he had been in, but it smelled the same. If there had been a window he could have looked out and watched the traffic going over the Hammersmith Flyover, but the room was windowless.

  ***

  The door opened and a smartly dressed man entered. Michael was puzzled, but he said nothing.

  “Hello Michael, I am Detective Inspector Boniface.”

  “Detective Inspector, bloody Norah!” Michael exclaimed. “I kicked in a kebab shop door, I didn’t rob a bank. Am I in real trouble this time?”