Page 37

chapter thirty-seven

James could hear the phone in Hartridge’s office ringing.

He hurried out of his office, hoping it was Hartridge calling with information from Kent, and lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

“DC Hartridge?”

“No, he’s not in. This is DS Archer.” James recognized the voice as the sergeant from downstairs.

“Right. DS Archer, there’s a man tied up and gagged in a car in Notting Hill, found by a bobby this morning on his rounds. The car registration has a flag on it, attached to a case you’re involved in.”

“What type of car?” James suddenly realized he’d forgotten all about Tanner. “Where in Notting Hill?”

He could hear the sergeant turning pages. “Black Mercedes.” He gave the registration number and the street it was found in.

Gabriella’s street.

“Have they released the man who was tied up?” James asked. “He might be the person of interest we’ve been looking for for the last few days.”

“No, the bobby didn’t know what to do, so he called it in.” The sergeant flipped a few more pages. “Do you want to go fetch him?”

James looked at his watch. The lawyer Harold Blythe had insisted on could only make it in this afternoon.

He had time.

“I’ll come. Tell them to wait for me.” He went back to his office to fetch his coat, and found Whetford hovering just inside his door.

“Sir.” He reached for his coat, and began shrugging into it. “If you need to discuss something with me, do you mind if we walk and talk? I have to pick up a suspect, but I also need to go over information before I question Harold Blythe this afternoon, so I’m unfortunately pressed for time.”

“Certainly.” Whetford didn’t sound happy about it, but he stepped out of James’s office. “Well done on the arrest last night. Will it hold water?”

“For the abduction and assault on Katie Brompton, it definitely will. The same goes for the assault on Mr. Somerville and on me.” James shrugged. “The rest is something we’ll have to work on. DC Hartridge is in Kent this morning, looking over Blythe’s house. Maybe we’ll find something there that links Blythe to the murders we believe he committed.” He kept quiet about the glove that linked Blythe to the attack on Mrs. Gallagher. No point letting Whetford know that he’d been down in the archives, looking through old evidence boxes.

James wondered briefly how the reopened murder case was going for Whetford. Whether he was in any danger.

He gave Whetford a more thorough look, and under his scrutiny, Whetford shifted a little, as if nervous.

“Very well. That’s good work.” They had reached the stairwell, and Whetford started up the stairs to his office. “Keep me informed.”

“Yes, sir.” James ran quickly down the stairs and thought maybe Whetford did look a little gray. He found he had no twinge of conscience about it at all.

When he reached Notting Hill, he felt something go cold inside him at how close Tanner’s car was to Gabriella’s house. There was a small crowd gathered on the pavement, trying to get a look at what was happening. The bobby had been joined by a colleague, and they were starting to look a bit desperate.

When the Wolseley pulled up, James could see them breathe a sigh of relief.

“DS Archer? PC Naigle.” Naigle gave him a nod. “This the man you’re looking for?” He stepped back, allowing James a look inside the car, and there was Tanner, furious eyes snapping above a black fabric gag which was tied around his mouth and nose.

“That’s him.” As he took out his handcuffs, he glanced at the crowd.

Jerome was among the group, and when he caught James looking at him, he gave a sly wink and then backed away.

Mystery solved.

James fought a quiet battle not to smile as he helped the PCs untie the rope around Tanner’s wrists and ankles, and cut off the gag.

“Let me at least stretch out before you put those on me,” Tanner said, giving the handcuffs a dark look as he shook out his limbs. “I was the victim of an assault.”

“Do you know the identity of your attacker?” James asked, ignoring him and getting on the handcuffs.

“Attackers. Plural. And no, they wore masks. But they were Jamaicans or something. Black fellows.” Tanner’s gaze scanned the crowd, which was a representative mix of the British Empire.

James looked up at Gabriella’s flat, but her curtains were closed and he wondered if she even knew what was going on down here.

He wanted to run up and knock on her door so badly, but the clock was ticking and he hoped Hartridge had some news for him. He didn’t want to be away from the phone too long.

“Let’s go.” He put Tanner in the back of the Wolseley, and headed back to Scotland Yard, grateful that the fog had blown away with the wind this morning.

“So you went back to Miss Farnsworth’s house in your car after you chased her in the fog?” he asked. He would have seen the Mercedes if it had been there last night, he was sure of it, and if the man he’d seen last night really had been Tanner, he’d been on foot.

“You know about that?” Tanner asked, surprised. “About running after her in the fog?”

“I spoke to her about it shortly after she managed to evade you.” James still recalled the shot of fear that had crackled through him when he’d first heard Gabriella call his name. He never wanted to feel that way again, and Tanner was responsible for it.

He lifted his gaze to the rear view mirror and sent Tanner a quick look.

“See, I just wanted her to drop the charges. She wasn’t harmed, right? I also wanted to know what she’d told you. That’s all. I wasn’t planning on doing anything to her.” Tanner moved his shoulders, as if he couldn’t get comfortable.

“Tanner, are you sane?” James couldn’t believe a man in his position was seriously arguing that holding a person against their will and forcing them to talk was a harmless endeavor.

Tanner blinked. Shuffled around on his seat. “I went too far, all right. I saw my whole career in shreds, and when I realized she was in the bathroom, I thought it would be an easy matter to get her to talk. After the adrenalin wore off, I went back to apologize for scaring her. When she wasn’t there, I guessed she’d have gone to you again. I lost my grip there for a bit, I don’t mind admitting it.” He heaved a sigh. “And then when I was walking back to my car, these blokes jumped me and left me tied up. I’m not sure why.”

“Your client must be paying you big money to have you trashing your reputation like this,” James said. “Mrs. Fitzgerald, is that right?”

Tanner’s gaze lifted. “You got a warrant to search my office?”

“We did.” James sent him a cold smile. “And we will be talking with Mrs. Fitzgerald, you can be sure of it.”

“She’s paid me a lot, but not enough to lose my license.” Tanner shook his head. “She insinuated that she’d recommend me to her posh friends, and I thought this could really be an in for me with the moneyed set, you see?”

“But why the aggressive hounding of Miss Farnsworth?” James had never understood that.

“Mrs. Fitzgerald is desperate to know who her husband was visiting that day. A desperate client who looked like she would be very grateful if I found out what she wanted to know.” Tanner shrugged. “I need the money, and I don’t mind admitting I could see a nice rosy future if I got it right.”

“And you thought Miss Farnsworth was the answer.” James tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

“When Mrs. Fitzgerald saw the fine, and that her husband tried to hide it from her numerous times, she became convinced he was having an affair with her cousin, who lives on that street.” Tanner grimaced. “He, of course, refuses to admit it. He insists he wasn’t in any house at all, that he’d parked there to go shopping because he couldn’t find a place to park on the high street.”

“And do you think he’s having an affair with Mrs. Fitzgerald’s cousin?” James asked.

“Given the fear I’ve seen in his eyes at the thought of being found out, yes.” Tanner shifted on his seat again. “And I should probably clarify that Mrs. Fitzgerald’s cousin in this instance is a man.”

“Ah.” That did make things clearer. Both the fear on Fitzgerald’s part, and the relentless chasing after the issue by his wife.

“You have to see that I didn’t set out to hurt or frighten Miss Farnsworth.” Tanner leaned forward as James drove through the massive steel gates of New Scotland Yard. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

James parked in front of a side door, and an officer emerged.

He opened the passenger door, and watched Tanner struggle out.

“Holding?” the officer asked.

“Yes, please take him to holding.” James stepped back. “Am I going to have other people coming forward after what’s happened in this case hits the news, Tanner? Others who you’ve held against their will, grabbed, or chased through the streets of London to get them to withdraw charges or give you information?”

Tanner’s look, startled and fearful, told James there probably would be, and he was silent as he was led into the building.

James parked the Wolseley and then went in by the front entrance. “Any messages?” he asked at the desk.

He was handed a note phoned in by Hartridge, asking him to call a Kent number, and he ran up to his office to make the call.

Hartridge answered on the second ring. “This is definitely Blythe’s residence,” he told James. “We found four handbags in a cupboard, all in a neat row, and behind them, we found another five.”

James sat down slowly. “So Katie Brompton was his fifth. Was he matching his old body count, murder for murder, I wonder?”

“We couldn’t find records of anyone killed during the Blitz at the place where the first body was found over a month ago,” Hartridge said. “But now we have the handbags, we should be able to work out who he might have murdered and left there.”

“Good work, Ian. I want all evidence collected by the book, everything labeled and put in separate bags. And keep looking for anything else that would tie him to the crimes.”

“We’ve got him either way, don’t we?” Hartridge asked.

“We’ve got him,” James agreed. He leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, then closed his eyes.

This was why he was a copper, despite the poison that Whetford brought to the Met. He and Hartridge had made a difference, and Whetford could try to push them out or corrupt them, but he would not succeed.