Stealth (26 page)

‘Nothing that could be described as an outcome. All he'd admit to was being on the sidelines, again, in the name of research. I don't think anyone'll get a lot of joy, to be frank. What we really need is the boss man. And of course as matters stand now there's plenty to get Hamlyn put away, probably for the rest of his life – but there'll have to be a hearing to see if he's fit to plead first, of course.'

‘Do those working on Operation Captura have any idea at all where Coates might be?' Patrick enquired impatiently.

It transpired that they did not. And yes, we were all fed up with sitting around talking. We were realistic enough to know that investigations are ninety per cent talking, listening, reading, writing, watching, pounding the streets and deadly boredom. Therefore, until some useful information came to light about the possible whereabouts of Coates we decided to do a little more talking and, the following morning, endeavour to interview Claudia Barton-Jones.

The Bartons-Joneses lived in one of the penthouse flats of a modern development in Teddington, overlooking the river. Patrick told me that he had money on the woman now living there on her own, her husband having seen sense, this intelligent guess well on the way towards being proved correct when we arrived and saw that the apartment was for sale. Personally, I was delighted with the prospect of coming face to face with my old friend ‘Alice' again.

‘You were in France – both of you,' was her opening remark.

Patrick told her exactly who we were and her face assumed the kind of expression that made me feel all jolly inside. Despondently, she let us in and showed us into a huge room with ceiling to floor windows on the side overlooking the Thames. The furnishings were starkly minimalist: black, white, Rothko-style wall paintings in red, orange and charcoal-grey. The only living thing, other than us, was a single white-flowered orchid plant.

‘You'd better sit down,' said Claudia Barton-Jones, eyeing me curiously. She looked much the same as when I had seen her before and was around forty years of age, of medium height and slightly overweight in the way that would make it difficult for her to find clothes to fit, that is, big in the bust with short, and slightly bandy, legs. Her dark brunette hair had red tints now and the crimson fingernails badly needed attention.

‘This is an official interview,' Patrick began by saying. ‘But we're not directly involved in the investigation into alleged irregularities with regard to your expenses.'

The woman's brow cleared a little. ‘Oh.'

‘I want to ask you about your connection with Clement Hamlyn.'

‘He's just a friend.'

‘Think carefully before you answer. What is your connection with him?'

‘Look, I'm sorry I pretended to be someone else but I didn't want my husband to know I was—'

Patrick carved her up. ‘I'm not remotely interested in what you didn't want your husband to know. I suggest that Hamlyn isn't just a friend as he doesn't appear to have any others. In what way are you
connected
with him?'

Crossly, the woman answered, ‘I've known him for years, that's all, and we occasionally go out together. He asked me if I'd like to go to France. And I would like to point out that we did
not
share a room.'

‘Why did you lie to me, and others in the bar that evening?' I asked her. ‘All that rubbish about being a travel writer.'

‘For the same reason that I stated just now. I have a fairly unusual name and I didn't want anyone to be in a position to know I was in France with a man who wasn't my husband.'

‘Because you're divorcing him for some reason or other and don't want him to have anything he can accuse you of in order to get more of his money? I take it he's not living here.'

‘No, right now he's at what I believe is referred to as a crash pad in town – it's quite near where he works. Don't you ever let your hair down?'

‘Yes, but not with other
men.
And I prefer to do so without someone spiking my drinks – which you did.'

‘I did not.'

‘Did Hamlyn?'

‘No, I fixed all the drinks myself. I was feeling generous. Why should either of us do that?'

OK, perhaps I had drunk far too much. I actually felt myself blush.

Patrick said, ‘You're in the habit of accompanying Hamlyn to a house in Richmond belonging to a man called Hereward Trent.'

‘He's a businessman who Clement's known for years. What of it?'

‘I'm afraid we're in possession of the whole story and it's not pretty. The Trents' home was being used as an HQ for a gang of serious criminals. He's dead, murdered; his body was very recently discovered at a nature reserve in east London. Hamlyn's under arrest, not for that killing – not yet that is – but for the murder of the Trents' neighbour, Miss Rosemary Smythe.'

‘I can't believe it. That can't be right.'

‘There's very good evidence to support the charge. I understand you once gave this lady a two-fingered salute when you met her in the street.'

‘That's not a crime. Everyone hated her – she was a spiteful old woman.'

‘Everyone?'

‘OK, that's what I was told.'

‘Everyone being Hamlyn, Hereward Trent and his wife, Sonya, a Russian mobster by the name of Anthony Thomas, his minder and any number of vicious and boneheaded henchmen, one of whom paraded around the Trents' garden with one or more of the weapons that were kept hidden in the house.'

‘I know absolutely nothing about that.'

‘I think you do.'

‘Did Hamlyn give you any jewellery?' I said.

‘Jewellery? I don't think so.'

‘It's hardly something that would have slipped your mind. Could it be a ring or a gold chain with a locket? A ring perhaps because he's asked you to marry him when you've finally dumped your husband.'

‘No! I'd never marry him – he's as good as being an alcoholic. There was a time when I thought I could help him but—'

I interrupted her. ‘You need a large dose of reality. He is an alcoholic and for that and other reasons he's seriously mentally ill. You must be aware of that. I'll ask you again: did he give you any jewellery?'

Barton-Jones shook her head.

‘I'm quite prepared to get a search warrant,' Patrick told her.

‘Then get one.'

Patrick made himself more comfortable. ‘What really interests me, having talked to you, is that out of all the people we've interviewed you seem to be the only one who isn't terrified of him. Perhaps you'd be good enough to explain that to me.'

She shrugged. ‘As I've just said, I've known him for years.'

‘Right back to his youth, the dreadlocked yobbo who worked at a second-hand car business in London and as a hit man for one or more gang bosses in his spare time? Really?'

‘Yes. I was a social worker in those days. I was involved with his family and tried to sort him and his younger half-brother out. My assignment was actually with the younger boy. Clement is around my age.'

‘But you failed as far as he was concerned.'

‘In some ways I suppose I did. But we've stayed . . . friends.'

‘Have you ever been sexually involved with him?'

‘No! I've said as much already, haven't I?'

‘Perhaps you're the only person he feels he can trust.'

‘That's possible.'

‘And if he does have a flicker of warm feelings for you he might not have threatened to kill you as he has just about everyone else in his poisonous circle but keeps you in tow and gives you the odd present, a few days in the South of France perhaps, to ensure your silence because he knows you have a very good idea what he's doing.'

‘That's a terrible thing to say.'

‘Am I right? Yes?'

Again she shook her head, but her lower lip trembled.

‘Mrs Barton-Jones,' Patrick murmured. ‘When I worked for MI5 they used to let me loose on people who in those days were referred to as traitors. I don't want to have to upset you unnecessarily.' When she still made no response he continued, an edge to his voice: ‘I know you're lying.'

‘I . . . am . . . not . . . lying,' the woman ground out slowly.

‘I know you're lying because I'm trained to know when people are lying and the reason you are is that you
are
frightened of Clement Hamlyn. I have an idea he forced you – a mixture of gifts and threats – to make those fraudulent expense claims to fund his drinking and gambling. He could be behind the reasons for the other criminal charges levelled against you as well. Tell the truth.'

‘Then I'm surrounded on all sides!' the woman suddenly cried. ‘The police, him, my husband, my employers and now
you
!' She got up from her seat and ran over to the window and my heart leapt in alarm, thinking for one awful moment that she might be about to try to throw herself out.

‘No,' Patrick said quietly. ‘I'm the answer to all this.'

She turned. ‘The answer!'

‘Please come back and sit down.'

Hesitantly, she came.

‘It's over,' Patrick continued. ‘Most of those involved have been arrested, or soon will be, some are dead. There's every chance that Hamlyn will be found unfit to plead and spend all, or most of, the rest of his life in a secure mental hospital. Your only chance is to tell the absolute truth – to me, and I'll try to help you.'

Perceptively, the woman was now shivering. ‘Sorry, I simply can't perceive of a time when this nightmare will be over.'

‘Would it be a good idea if Ingrid made us all some coffee?'

She glanced at me and waved vaguely towards a door behind where I was sitting. ‘Yes . . . do.'

The kitchen was immaculately clean. I left the gleaming Italian coffee machine severely alone – it looked as though one needed a degree in computing science in order to work it – and filled a kettle. By the time I had found everything I needed, made the coffee, instant, and returned to that stark room Claudia Barton-Jones was recounting, presumably at Patrick's prompting in an effort to get her to relax, some of her early experiences as a social worker.

‘Clement and his half-brother were brought up by their grandmother,' she was saying. ‘I'd been told – in confidence obviously but it hardly matters now – that his father was a French merchant seaman, his mother a prostitute with a drug habit who was the daughter of the woman who took the two children on. Further contact with their parents was impossible, Clement's father having predictably disappeared back to sea, the mother left home and eventually died of an overdose. The father of the other boy was unknown.'

‘And you've kept in touch with Hamlyn ever since you were assigned to his family,' Patrick said, putting a spoonful of sugar in his coffee.

‘Oh, no. There was a break of quite a few years after he first got into trouble with the law and then went to prison. I didn't meet him again until after he'd had a couple of books published and he looked me up. I was thrilled, of course, that he seemed to have turned his life around but . . .' She stopped speaking for a moment and then said, ‘And now . . .'

‘You might go to prison if it can be proved that you're an accessory to murder.'

‘That's your job, I suppose,' Claudia said dully.

‘The gangland killings of mobsters murdered because either they did not pay up having been threatened with death if they didn't or as a result of old grudges is the responsibility of the Metropolitan Police – and we're talking about hired hit men under investigation here.
Eventually
that will lead to the mobsters at the top. SOCA's not prepared to wait. My original brief was to catch Miss Smythe's killer. We have: Hamlyn. He killed her because, although no one's admitting anything, it was thought she'd gone off with a sub-machine gun that had been left lying around. She had, took it as evidence and hid it in her loft. We've found it. But he's not the brains behind everything, someone else is.'

‘You must believe me when I say that I'm not involved.'

‘How many times did you go to the Trents' home?'

‘Three altogether, I think.'

‘What happened?'

‘Nothing much. The men usually went off into Hereward's study – for some of the time, that is – while I had a glass of wine or two with Sonya. Once it was during the summer and we sat in the garden. She said that the woman next door used to peer at them from her tree house.'

‘It was sabotaged and collapsed while the eighty-year-old-plus lady was in it, causing her to break her leg and suffer cuts and contusions. Go on.'

This news, or reminder, did not appear to penetrate, a sign perhaps of how worried this woman now was.

‘Did Hamlyn not discuss with you the purpose of the meetings?'

‘No, and I didn't like to pry. I have to say I did wonder what was going on but never met people you've just described as henchmen.'

‘And Sonya Trent made no comment?'

‘Yes, she did actually. She whispered to me once that she didn't like these people in her house, didn't like the look of them at all. All Hereward would say was that it was business.'

‘I'm not quite sure why Hamlyn took you along.'

‘Perhaps to keep Sonya company.'

‘She's disappeared, by the way.'

‘Oh, that's awful. We became quite good friends.'

‘Did she ever mention a friend who she might go to in an emergency?'

‘I can't remember her mentioning anyone. I have an idea she didn't make friends easily.'

‘What about these local authority contracts that it's alleged you were involved in placing in iffy circumstances?'

‘You said you weren't involved in investigating that.'

‘Not
directly
involved, I said. Insofar as it involves this bunch of mobsters it's relevant.'