A Donation of Murder Page 8

  He continued up the stairs on lighter feet, making a mental note to write to his sister and see if she still had their late mother’s engagement ring.

  Shepherd’s secretary, the guardian of his portal, was absent from his desk, so Pike knocked and entered. How happy he would be never to see this place again.

  Shepherd’s top floor office had expansive views of the Thames. On clear days one could see as far as Temple Pier down river, and Westminster Bridge in the opposite direction — not that there tended to be too many clear days in London. Now, through the greying tears of condensation on the window pane, Pike could see little but a billowing cloud of dirty white. A damp cold sank deep into his bones. He moved towards the stove where Shepherd stood warming his hands.

  ‘Shut the door.’

  Pike did as ordered and returned to the stove. He had not seen much of Shepherd since his illness, and it was still disconcerting not to see the same coat-flapping Leviathan ablaze with fuss, bluster and ill-humour. While the red-veined bulbous nose and greying side-whiskers seemed to have grown, the rest of Shepherd’s body had shrunk, and Pike found himself meeting his small pebble eyes from almost the same level.

  ‘Yesterday was a disaster, I hear,’ Shepherd said in lieu of a greeting. It seemed his life or death illness had done nothing to improve his temperament.

  Pike said nothing.

  ‘I didn’t see the point of sending troops.’

  ‘They would have helped with the evacuation of civilians. A child was murdered.’

  ‘But the thieving beggars were killed, and that’s the main thing. You lost the necklace though — not good, not good at all, Pike.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Pike answered, hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. ‘Was anything else stolen in the heist?’

  ‘No, that’s it — but quite enough, I would have thought.’ Shepherd picked up a photograph and shoved it at Pike. ‘That’s it, the La Peregrina necklace. Worth at least thirty thousand pounds.’

  Pike inspected the photograph. The pearl was pear-shaped and huge. It hung like a pendant from a decorative white metal foliate, attached to a simple chain link necklace interspersed with smaller pearls. He frowned. It was an attractive piece, but he couldn’t imagine it to be thirty thousand pounds’ worth.

  ‘Probably worth a lot more now,’ Shepherd continued, increasing Pike’s bafflement. ‘The King is interested in it, you see, wanted to surprise the Queen on her birthday.’

  The King? Good heavens! Pike’s hand moved to the knot of his tie. ‘Who owns it now, and what was it doing at Sachs’s jewellery shop?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s owned by the Duke of Abercorn. He’s spitting chips, as you can imagine. It was undergoing repairs, kept falling off the setting apparently and needed quite a bit of work. The King was to be given a viewing next week and the Duke was hoping for a decision then.’

  No wonder Abercorn was spitting chips. No wonder Shepherd looked as if someone was about to light a firecracker on his tail.

  ‘We need to get it back. You need to get it back,’ Shepherd said, jabbing a finger into Pike’s chest. ‘So, tell me, Chief Inspector, how you plan to do it.’

  Pike racked his brains. He didn’t need Shepherd’s tone to tell him how important the case was.

  ‘First, I need to consolidate the witness interviews, especially the jeweller’s, Mr Sachs,’ Pike said. ‘We need to find out how the thieves operated. I need to identify the dead men and their associated fences and putter-uppers. I also need to find out the whereabouts of Tommy “the Tadpole” Beauchamp, the only member of the gang formally identified. The boy’s a known associate of the Anchor Men. I suspect they are behind this. None of the other London gangs are this daring or this organised.’

  Shepherd frowned. ‘Surely you don’t think John Giblett’s involved? Rumour has it he’s retired, and anyway, this is hardly his style. He’s always kept violence to a minimum.’

  Pike shook his head. ‘He used to keep violence to a minimum, but his modus operandi has changed over the last year or so. Last year’s robbery of the Brighton train, sir, you remember that? One guard killed and another injured. And then there was the Croydon jewellery shop, where the elderly jeweller was beaten to a pulp despite his cooperation with the thieves.’

  ‘It’s never been proved that the Anchor men were behind either of those.’

  ‘No, the investigations are still ongoing. But I recently spoke to one of the officers in charge who told me a couple of Giblett’s associates are under suspicion. Both these robberies match Giblett’s style in the massive preparation involved, and I think it’s highly likely he’s also behind this Hatton Gardens robbery.’

  Pike paused for breath, wondering how much more convincing Shepherd needed. His scathing sneer suggested more.

  ‘He stole the Ascot Cup, didn’t he?’ Pike continued. ‘They say that while the Cup was in his possession he used it as a punchbowl. This necklace seems like a natural progression to me. Thieving’s a game to him. A man like Giblett doesn’t retire, even if he is as rich as Croesus. The money’s of secondary importance, it’s the thrill of outwitting us that counts, of proving to his mates that he really is still the King of Thieves.’

  ‘It’s still only a hunch, Pike,’ Shepherd said, softening slightly and letting out a breath. ‘But God help us if he is behind this. We’ve never had a successful prosecution against him.’ Shepherd pulled thoughtfully at a fluffy side-whisker. ‘The most we can hope for is to get the necklace back.’

  ‘Giblett’s a gambler. A gambler’s luck always runs out eventually. And if we can find Tadpole, we might yet find the necklace.’

  ‘I don’t want “ifs” and “mights” from you, Pike, I want “wills” — is that understood?

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Your career is resting on this, you know that, don’t you?’

  Pike stifled a sigh. Here we go again. He’d be glad when all this was over. He used to think the army was bad enough with its rigid structures, internal squabbles and incompetent superiors. His last twelve years with the police had made his time in the army appear like a seaside holiday camp. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘There’s things about you and that female pathologist we wouldn’t want to become common knowledge, would we?’

  Though it came as no surprise that Shepherd would use this low tactic, Pike struggled to control his anger. Could he make the switch from police force to army before Shepherd spilled the beans about him and Dody? Not if he didn’t get that necklace back first. He’d been half hoping that Shepherd’s memory of the events of summer had been eclipsed by his heart attack, but obviously that hadn’t happened.

  He would not give the man the satisfaction of an answer. Instead Pike tried and failed once more to meet his skittering eyes.

  ‘They say you did a good job filling my shoes while I was on sick parade. Well, that’s the last taste of command you’re going to get, I assure you, Pike. And as for that doctor dolly-bird of yours, cock up this case and she will be ruined.’

  ‘Is there anything else, sir?’ Pike asked, fighting the urge to grind his teeth and clench his fists.

  ‘Get out, and don’t show your face in here again without the necklace.’

  Pike maintained his composure and walked from the room. He was at the top of the stairs when he heard Shepherd bellowing: ‘And shut that bloody door!’

  He did not turn back.

  *

  Pike spent the rest of the morning reading through notes and coordinating the police investigation of the heist. As usual the eyewitness reports were unreliable, the number of thieves ranging from three to five. The gang included a shadowy figure driving the getaway motorcar, whom one witness identified as a man, the other a woman. Mr Sachs, the jeweller whose shop was robbed, was suffering from shock and so far had not been much help to the police. Pike underlined his name in his notebook and copied down his address.

  On several occasions while he worked he found himself glancing at the phone, willin
g it to ring. Dody had promised she’d call as soon as she’d completed the autopsies of the three dead robbers. At one stage he’d picked up the earpiece and went as far as calling the operator before hanging up. She was busy, he must allow for that. With Spilsbury away she was the sole Home Office Pathologist on duty and he had no wish to add to the pressure she was already under.

  That morning at breakfast she’d looked exhausted. She was also disappointed that Pike had not been able to meet her new friend. She’d pepped up, however, while going over the details of how the woman had woken up on the autopsy slab. Pike was quite put off his breakfast. His mind wandered to stories he’d heard of people being pronounced dead and buried alive. Exhumed coffins with scratch marks on the underside of their lids, corpses with bloodied fingernails . . .

  ‘Tea, sir?’

  Pike looked up with a sharp breath. ‘Good God, Singh, what are you doing here?’

  The sergeant carried a small tea tray in one hand, his other bound up in a sling.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I was unable to knock.’

  ‘That’s hardly surprising. But you shouldn’t be here at all, the doctor told you to take a week off work.’

  ‘He did, sir, but I—’

  Pike waved his hand. ‘No need to explain.’ He knew full well that while Singh’s promotion had earned him greater respect from the men he had still failed to assimilate with the residents of the police section house — the unmarried men’s quarters. Not only was he a foreigner, he was the oldest man there and a family man at that, meaning he had little in common with the younger officers. After his wife had died he’d transferred from the Indian police to the English police in order to make enough money to provide his children with a decent education. They lived with his parents in India to whom he sent most of his pay.

  Pike found he could relate to Singh on many levels, and if not for the diversity of their ranks he knew they would have been friends by now. Fraternising with other ranks, however, was as against the police code of conduct as it had been in the army. Funny to think that friendship between himself and the incompetent back-stabbing Shepherd would be condoned. There was no reason to it.

  Singh broke into Pike’s thoughts. ‘No sign of the young gentleman known as Tommy the Tadpole, sir.’

  ‘Hardly a gentleman, Singh.’ Pike reached for the book of mug shots lying on his desk and flicked through the pages until he came to a picture of Tommy.

  ‘Why, he is but a child,’ Singh exclaimed.

  ‘He was eleven years old when that photograph was taken. He assaulted an old woman in broad daylight. When she wouldn’t let go of her bag he slashed her arm so badly she almost lost it. I was undercover at the time and broke out to arrest him, which was a mistake given the circumstances that followed. He was a member of a criminal gang even then.’

  ‘Then why was he not imprisoned?’

  ‘A good lawyer — provided by the gang’s leader, no doubt — got him off. They look after each other.’

  ‘Which gang might that be, sir?’

  ‘The Anchor Men,’ Pike said with no hesitation.

  ‘Strange name.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve not been around long enough to have heard of them. Named after the Anchor and Whistle in Hackney, where they used to meet in the old days. They say the gang’s been operating for over two hundred years. A man called John Giblett leads it now, “Gentleman John”. We’ve been after him for years but have never been able to pin a thing on him. He commands amazing loyalty from his men; no one’s ever been willing to grass him up. They’ll go to prison for him, knowing he’ll look after their families while they’re away.’ Pike rubbed his chin and contemplated the three bodies in the tenement, shot execution-style through the back of the head. This could hardly be called ‘looking after’ his men. He stole a glance at the phone. ‘They never used to resort to such violence though,’ Pike continued, thinking aloud.

  ‘Perhaps the necklace was stolen by another gang?’

  ‘Perhaps, but . . . but why would Tadpole strike up an allegiance with another gang after all the Anchors have done for him? If not for Giblett, the lad would still be in prison. I won’t know for certain until we identify those bodies, of course.’ Pike shrugged. ‘It might help also if we can link this crime to recent similar heists that have remained unsolved, for example the Brighton train robbery and the Croydon jewellery robbery. Liaise with the forces involved, Singh. I want to know how the investigations are going and I want dates. I want to know when the Anchors changed their modus operandi and why. If nothing else it will at least show Shepherd that we are dealing with the same gang.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I will.’ Singh wrote in his notebook, then paused and looked up. ‘This John Giblett sounds an interesting character. What’s his back—’

  The phone cut Singh off. Pike lunged for the receiver. Dody. ‘Yes, good afternoon Doctor,’ Pike answered formally for Singh’s benefit. Dody told him she was ready to meet and discuss the bodies. He glanced at the watch on the end of a chain looped gracefully across his waistcoat. ‘I’ll see you in about half an hour,’ he told her.

  Chapter Ten

  Margaret had just returned to her bedroom after meeting with Matilda when she heard a man’s footsteps thumping up the stairs. Her body tensed as the door was flung open.

  ‘Bloody hell, where’ve you been?’ John boomed as he strode on long legs towards her. He pressed a hand into the small of her back, the fingers of the other pawing at her décolletage. She didn’t resist, nor did she encourage him. His jacket was cool as the snow outside, and the tip of his nose as it brushed hers felt like the pointed end of an icicle.

  She shivered and turned her face away. ‘John, we need to talk.’

  ‘In a minute. First we go to bed.’ He pushed her towards the four-poster that he had paid for. A writhing Christ looked down with distaste from a wooden crucifix on the wall.

  Margaret closed her eyes.

  He was rougher than usual and the act gave her no pleasure. He fell asleep straight afterwards and Margaret left him snoring in the bed. She poured water from her jug into the porcelain bowl on the washstand and cleansed away his stickiness. Then she rang the bell for coffee, which she took at her writing desk in a niche on the other side of the room. To every woman in her gang she wrote a brief note announcing her resignation as leader of the Whistlers and telling them of her decision not to appoint a successor. They could wrangle with each other if they wished, or they could close up shop, which is what she would recommend. In each envelope she placed a ten-pound note — enough to see the winter through, she explained.

  The last envelope she addressed to Doctor Dorothy McCleland. In this she slipped a note saying ‘for the clinic’ and left it at that. The six hundred pounds’ worth of crisp banknotes would speak for themselves. As for the other matter plaguing Dody, the conundrum that had caused the doctor’s eyes to fill with tears, Margaret was now on the case. After discussing the topic with Matilda, the young woman had embraced Margaret’s plan to infiltrate Scotland Yard in order to find out all she could about Dody’s policeman lover. Margaret needed as much information as she could get to help the pair, and to literally get to the heart of the matter.

  The sound of shifting mattress springs caused her to turn.

  ‘The heist was a success, thank you for asking,’ John said, his voice husky with sleep.

  Margaret slipped the pile of envelopes into her desk drawer then turned in her chair to face him. ‘I don’t consider having three men killed to be particularly successful.’

  ‘What makes you think I had them killed?’

  ‘Because I know how you work these days, and I know Mr James was there. Wherever he goes, death follows.’

  John shrugged. ‘A considered culling; they were riff-raff.’

  ‘Is that you or is that Mr James talking?’

  ‘Archie Slade was planning on going out on his own, setting up a rival gang and taking Toby and Spot with him — as well as a good deal of my trade
secrets. Some of it was my fault, I admit, I took Archie on too readily. Used my guts and not my head. I should have done a better job of looking at his character before getting him on board.’

  ‘Oh,’ Margaret said after a pause, ‘I didn’t know.’ Sometimes a person did have to go to certain lengths to protect his or her business, she could relate to that. ‘Still, you set them up, didn’t you? That was dirty, John, real dirty. It never used to be like this, you used to take pride in the fact that you only used violence as a last resort.’

  ‘This was a last resort, Miss Squeaky Clean.’

  ‘I never resort to killing people.’

  ‘And I’ve never pretended to be pure as the driven slush. I’ve never been a hypocrite. I’m afraid I don’t have the magic key to the old geezer in the dog collar, the one who dissolves—’

  ‘It’s absolves, John, he absolves us of our sin.’

  ‘Right, you know what I’m talking about, that special license you have that lets you sin over and over again.’

  John’s words stung. He’d got that part right, and it was something she intended to change.

  His voice softened. ‘Peggy, I know there’s been casualties along the way. You can’t run a mob of men and have them thinking you’re a pussy-foot. But anyhow, let’s not go into this again. There’s no carriage for you to jump from this time, and jumping from the window might cause some serious damage.’

  Margaret had told the lady doctor that she and John had been arguing over his seeing other women. The truth was, her impetuous action had been about Mr James and the poisonous influence he’d been exerting over her lover, who for years had been much admired by those in the game as a ‘gentleman thief’.

  In some ways, the argument could have been about another woman. The way that John had allowed Mr James to worm his way into his inner circle was as hurtful to Margaret as if he had taken on a new mistress.