Reckless Endangerment(24)

‘D’you think she might’ve had something to do with topping her husband, Harry?’ asked Richie, as we strolled back to his office. The suspicions of a career CID officer still remained.

‘I very much doubt it, Ted,’ I said, unwilling to disclose my concerns about the circumstances surrounding the murder of Clifford Gregory, even to an ex-copper. Loyalties tend to change with a change of career. ‘But I’ll keep you posted if anything interesting comes up. Oh, there’s one other thing. D’you know if Sharon Gregory had a particular friend, one who is in the same crew maybe and might know what she gets up to when she’s in Miami?’

‘Leave it with me, Harry, I’ll ask around. I’ll give you a bell if I find out anything.’ Richie glanced at his watch. ‘You got time for a snifter?’

‘Yes, why not? But Dave’s driving, so he’ll have an orange juice.’

Richie laughed. ‘Rank hath its privileges,’ he said, as Dave and I followed him into one of the many bars to be found in the Heathrow Airport complex.

Once back at ESB, I asked Dave to telephone the Shannon Hotel at Miami Beach and find out if Sharon was there.

Ten minutes later, he returned. ‘She’s not there, guv, and they aren’t expecting the crew she’s usually with until Wednesday.’

‘That comes as no surprise,’ I said, leaving Dave to list the contacts he had found on Sharon Gregory’s mobile. I phoned Linda Mitchell in an attempt to clarify one or two points.

‘How many mobile telephones did you come across at the Gregorys’ house, Linda?’

‘Two, Mr Brock,’ said Linda promptly. ‘One was in the study and the other was on the worktop in the kitchen. I’m about to examine them, but it’s most likely that the one from the kitchen was Sharon’s, and the one in the study belonged to her husband. I’ll let you know.’

‘A couple of other things. I’d be grateful if you’d have all the pillows that were in the master bedroom examined. Doctor Mortlock tells me that Clifford Gregory was suffocated, and he suspects it might’ve been one of the pillows that was used. So, a check for saliva or mucus would be useful, but you know better than me the sort of thing we’re looking for. Also, the piece of material found in the hall that Sharon Gregory said the intruder used to gag her. See if there was any trace of her saliva on it.’

‘Leave it with me,’ said Linda. ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I get a result.’

‘How are you getting on, Dave?’ I asked, returning to the incident room. ‘Incidentally, Linda Mitchell told me that she found another mobile in the house that belonged to Sharon.’

‘I’m not surprised, guv,’ said Dave. ‘The one we found at Heathrow has got all the usual girlie stuff on it, like hairdresser, manicurist, tanning studio, et cetera. But there are also six men’s names and their telephone numbers. Four of them are in the UK, and the other two have numbers in the States.’

‘And I’d put money on those men’s names not being on the mobile that Linda found in the kitchen at West Drayton.’

Dave laughed. ‘It’s beginning to look as though our Sharon was the sort of girl who played the field, guv, and didn’t want the late Clifford Gregory to come across the phone we found at the airport. Anyway, Colin Wilberforce is doing a subscriber check to find the addresses.’

‘I just hope they’re not too far away,’ I said. I’d travelled long distances in the past to chase up promising leads, only to find that I’d wasted my time when I got there. ‘Apart from going to Miami, I somehow doubt that Sharon would want to travel too far to get laid.’

‘No, but the guys she was seeing might be prepared to,’ said Dave cynically.

Linda Mitchell arrived in the incident room at two o’clock. She sat down and opened a file, resting it on her lap.

‘I’ve got the initial results of the examination of the property, Mr Brock. And I’ll start with the result I think will probably interest you the most: there was no trace of saliva on the gag that Sharon Gregory said had been stuffed in her mouth.’

‘What do you conclude from that, Linda?’ I asked. ‘Scientifically speaking.’

‘I would think that if she had been gagged and she’d eventually been able to dislodge it from her mouth, there should’ve been a trace. And in that case we’d almost certainly have been able to get a DNA sample from it. But there was nothing.’

‘So, the chances are that her claim to have been gagged wasn’t true.’

‘That would be my view,’ said Linda cautiously, and glanced at her notes again. ‘We also found a tea towel in the kitchen with a piece torn from it. The gag that was found in the hall is a mechanical fit for the tea towel.’