James Loftus, the lawyer, began to speak, but Fisher caught his arm and shook his head. “I probably deserved that. However, I’ve got the briefcase here. None of my guys touched the handle or the locks, so you should be able to confirm it belongs to Hickstead.”
The lawyer lifted the Harrods bag on to the table, the briefcase still inside. Inspector Boniface carefully slid the brown leather briefcase out onto the desk.
“Are you sure no-one has touched the handle or the locks?”
The former rock star nodded.
“We’ll need your prints, of course, for elimination purposes,” Boniface told him as he turned the briefcase to face him. Using a silver retractable ballpoint pen the Inspector pushed the right had side button toward the edge and the spring loaded fastener shot up. He repeated the operation for the left had side and, using the pen again, he opened the lid. It smelled of new leather. The inside was pristine. I suspected that Hickstead had bought it specifically for the diamond handover.
Inside the briefcase lay a large padded Jiffy bag and a plain manila envelope. Nothing else.
Inspector Boniface reached inside his pocket and took out a plastic ziplock bag containing a pair of pristine white cotton gloves. After slipping them on, he extracted the Jiffy bag. It was sealed. He looked at the Assistant Commissioner. He nodded and said, “The chain of evidence has already been broken, so you might as well open it.”
I knew enough about these things to understand that any incriminating evidence we found would be unusable because the briefcase had not moved directly from Lord Hickstead’s possession to the police, who would have sealed it to preserve any forensic evidence and recorded its processing from collection to trial.
Boniface carefully opened the Jiffy bag and removed a black velvet pouch. It had to be the diamonds. He opened the top of the drawstring pouch and looked inside. For a moment he said nothing, he simply stared at the contents. He then took the blue cardboard envelope file he had been carrying and placed in on the table where all of us could see it.
“Inventory please, Sergeant.” DS Fellowes opened his notebook to a clean yellow page. The inspector carefully tipped the contents on to the blue folder. There were fifteen stones of different sizes, which meant they were worth an average of sixteen thousand pounds each. I could well believe it. I had never seen diamonds as large, as pure or so beautifully cut, and I see a lot of jewellery and gems as a loss adjuster. They sparkled from whichever angle one looked at them, even under the fluorescent lighting.
For the second time that day there was a collective sharp intake of breath around the table. DS Fellowes photographed the diamonds and the pouch from various angles, with his mobile phone. Taking great care, Boniface replaced the diamonds in their velvet pouch. He then placed the pouch in an evidence bag and sealed it, passing it to Fellowes, who wrote something on the label.
Inspector Boniface returned to the briefcase and lifted out the plain brown envelope, which was also sealed. Written on it were the words ‘Dr. Crippin’. He carefully unsealed the gummed flap and then started to open the envelope.
“Stop!” Don Fisher shouted. “I need to explain something.” The lawyer immediately advised him not to say anything that might incriminate himself. Don Fisher told him that they had gone too far for that, and that he needed to protect his family.
“Dr. Crippin is a filth monger,” he explained. “He runs a website called CelebrityLeaks.org. It specialises in publishing private pictures, stolen movies and long lens shots of celebrities. Just yesterday he posted a video of that TV weathergirl showering topless on the beach in the French Riviera. Already that video has almost a million hits, and the ads on that page alone are raking in a small fortune.
I believe what you’ve got in that envelope are pictures of my daughter Lavender and some of her so-called friends, taken in Spain last year. I was approached by a German man who said he had ten Polaroids that he was sure I would rather have destroyed. He asked for a paltry sum of money, and I wish I’d paid him, but I get calls like that regularly and most of them are rubbish.”
I thought to myself that he might be right, but Lavender was well known as something of a self publicist, and if the Paparazzi don’t snap her for a month she allegedly tells them where they can find her while she’s out in some celebrity pool or on a beach, splashing around topless. Brand Lavender needed the oxygen of constant publicity.
Don Fisher was still talking. “Yesterday I got this text from the blackmailing shite, Lord Hickstead, signing himself off as Jim. It says, Thanks for the cash but keep your eye on CelebrityLeaks.org where your fragrant daughter will soon be making an appearance.”
“So, that’s why you had your men tail Hickstead and steal his briefcase after he had visited his safety deposit box?” Boniface asked.
“Yes. Believe me, that girl is in the deepest trouble of her short life. I told the TV company she’s been working with to get her home today from Italy. They whined about their shooting schedule. I told them if she wasn’t home tonight it would be a different and more fatal kind of shooting they would have to worry about. I was bloody angry.”
“And you believe that these Polaroid photographs in this envelope are intimate shots of your daughter?”
The old rocker nodded unhappily.
“Then, why didn’t you open the case and destroy them?” the Assistant Commissioner asked.
“Because, as much as I want to protect my family, I need the scum we keep calling Lord Hickstead to go down, to lose everything, to understand first hand the disgrace that Lavender faces. I realise that the boys got a little bit overzealous and made an executive decision to snatch the photos before he could sell them on. But remember that Gordo here and Dirk have known Lavender since she was born; we have video footage of them both bottle feeding her at the studio. She’s like a daughter to them. She might need a short sharp shock from you boys to bring her into line, but nobody deserves photos like those to be published on the internet.”
“So she has admitted to you that the photos exist, and she has described their subject matter?” It was the Assistant Commissioner again.
“No. She can’t remember. She was probably out of her head. It was the German boy who told me what was on them, but I wouldn’t believe him.”
“You realise, of course, that these photos are evidence that could be used to convict Hickstead. They will probably have his fingerprints on them, and that would be enough evidence to bring him in and sweat him, probably enough to get a warrant to search his safety deposit box.”
The father nodded silently. There were tears in his eyes.
Inspector Boniface spoke gently to Don Fisher, father to father.
“Don, if we use these photos at all it will be to get him off the streets. I assure you that between the Met and the City Police we will be looking at charges that go way beyond threatening to post these shots on the internet. In which case, these photos will never see the light of day in court.”
Somewhat mollified, Fisher thanked the Inspector.
“Mr Loftus, as Mr Fisher’s legal representative you need to advise him that he and his two colleagues will be asked to accept a Simple Caution, and that whilst a Caution is a not criminal record, their fingerprints and DNA may be retained under the appropriate Acts of Parliament.”
“Is this really necessary, Bryn?” the lawyer queried, revealing his familiarity with the Assistant Commissioner.
“Jim, you know full well that I am putting my neck on the block offering a Simple Caution at all. We should really be referring this to the Crown Prosecution Service.”
Assistant Commissioner Bryn Evans responded reasonably.