All That Is Buried

by Robert Scragg

  ‘Another one?’

  Styles nodded. ‘Yeah, sorry, boss. I should have mentioned it earlier, just with everything going on, it kinda got lost in the mix.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Porter said without missing a beat. ‘Lemme see the map. You can still help me prep.’

  Styles looked relieved, a naughty schoolkid told that he’d been spared detention, and slid a printout from Google Maps across the desk, red dots scattered across it.

  ‘OK, so these are the cameras that picked him up. You can see he comes into London, along the A406, literally a couple of kilometres from where Libby lived. Epping has far fewer cameras. There’s ways and means of driving as far as the visitors’ centre without getting spotted if you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘What about links to any of the Victoria Park victims?’

  ‘None that we’ve found so far, but I’ve been looking at his website. When it comes to roses, he’s like royalty. He’s had exhibitions at Kew, the Chelsea Flower Show. He even had some of his flowers used as part of the last royal wedding.’

  Porter shook his head. The more connected Grantham was, the worse it’d be if Milburn got a whiff. Not that the super would stand in the way of a righteous arrest. Far from it. The positive press inches it would bring would be music to his ears. Anyone with a public profile made him massively overcautious, though, to the point of being obstructive in the name of thoroughness.

  ‘Question is, if he’s not our guy, then what the hell is he hiding that he’d risk being tarred as a suspect?’

  ‘I’ve got a feeling it’ll be like pulling teeth,’ said Styles. ‘Speaking of awkward folk, did Marcus Hallforth pick out any familiar faces last night?’

  Porter had sat with Marcus the night before while he pored over faces, members of Nuhić’s gang and known associates. He’d drawn a blank, and sent Porter home in a grumpy mood that he’d had to make a real effort not to take out on Simmons.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said to Styles, shaking his head. ‘He’s another one. All these people and their bloody secrets. Most of ’em come out eventually anyway. Bunch of bloody timewasters.’

  ‘What about the son?’ Styles asked. ‘Runs most of the business now, apparently. Grantham said something about his family, how he used to do more with them but stopped, and went all cagey. If the two don’t see eye to eye, might be worth speaking to him? Find out what he has to say about dear old dad?’

  ‘Good shout,’ said Porter. ‘Will you have time to pick that up before you head off?’

  ‘Yeah, course I can. You sure everything’s OK, by the way? You really sounded weird on the phone yesterday.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Porter, then changed his mind. Sod being insular; if someone was following him, who better to have on his side than one of his most trusted friends? ‘Just that yesterday, I could have sworn someone was following me around.’

  He talked Styles through the sightings of the van, right up to the incident after football.

  ‘Jesus! Who do you think it is?’

  Porter shook his head. ‘Honestly, I have no idea. Probably that bloody news anchor, sniffing round, trying to catch me out and make me look stupid again.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ Styles said, but the looks they gave each other suggested neither was convinced. They bounced a few other ideas off each other around how to approach a man like Grantham. Someone clutching secrets to their chest like a kid hogging their favourite toy. It still felt like a long shot in many respects, but if this man knew where Libby was, alive or otherwise, Porter needed leverage, a way inside to make him crack.

  Styles checked his watch, trying to look nonchalant, but by the third time, Porter sent him on his way. No point them both incurring Emma’s wrath for him rocking up late.

  Half past one. Porter killed time by reading through the notes of some of the interviews Tessier and Sucheka had done with Victoria Park staff. His phone buzzed at five to the hour. Grantham and his solicitor were here.

  He was on his way downstairs to reception when Styles called.

  ‘Managed to speak to Grantham’s son on my way out, boss. Had a few interesting things to share.’

  Porter paused mid-step, listening intently as Styles recounted the call, frowning as he tried to slot these new pieces into place.

  ‘Good work, mate, now go find Emma before you blame me for running late,’ he said, signing off.

  He stood halfway down the last flight, letting what Styles had just shared soak in, mind racing as he decided how best to use it in the upcoming interview. Could go one of two ways, but Porter wasn’t the sort to tiptoe, not when so many had already suffered. Time to apply a little pressure to see if his man would buckle.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Stephen Holmes, of Holmes, Friedman and Warner, looked every inch the first name on the letterhead. Filling out his tailored suit, testing seams that were likely stitched at least ten pounds ago. He barely glanced up as Porter walked into the interview room, turning instead to whisper something to Daniel Grantham. His client looked just as Styles had described. Smartly dressed, countrified gent chic, tweed jacket and ticking all the right boxes for a harmless grandfather figure, but Porter fancied he caught a hard edge to the older man’s look as their eyes met.

  ‘Mr Grantham, I’m Detective Inspector Jake Porter. Thank you so much for coming in,’ Porter said, and ran through the formalities before starting the recording.

  ‘My client is here voluntarily as a courtesy, Detective,’ Holmes jumped in. ‘And doesn’t take kindly to the way he was treated by your colleague yesterday.’

  ‘I can only apologise if anything came over the wrong way, and I’m sure this is something we can clear up relatively quickly, but as you’ve no doubt seen on the news, this is a pretty serious matter we’re looking into.’

  ‘Which as far as I can see only links to my client insofar as whoever is responsible may possibly have been a customer. My client has provided a full customer list of anyone purchasing the varieties you specified, but your colleague,’ he said, referring to lines of illegible scribble, ‘Detective Sergeant Styles, went as far as to insinuate that my client might have been involved in the disappearance of a young girl.’

  ‘That’s not quite how I heard the conversation went,’ Porter began, putting a hand up to ward off a comeback from Holmes, ‘but be that as it may, if your client was caused any distress by my colleagues yesterday, I can assure you both it wasn’t intentional. You understand, though, that we have to follow the evidence where it leads us, and in this case, it led us to you, Mr Grantham, or to your roses at least.’

  ‘And I told your man yesterday, I have thousands of customers. All I do is grow and sell flowers. Other than tell you who I sell to, I really don’t see what this has to do with me.’

  ‘No one wants to agree with you more than I do, sir,’ said Porter. ‘And I’m sure you’re as keen as we are that we rule people like yourself out, and find the person responsible. Makes it all the more puzzling why you wouldn’t account for those trips to London. It’d help us tick you off and move on a lot faster.’

  There was a brief pause as Holmes leant in, whispering to Grantham. ‘Nothing to account for, really,’ said Grantham finally. ‘Just popped in to catch up with a few friends.’

  ‘And which friends would they be?’

  ‘Just a few former colleagues. A couple of them work in parks across London. I supply quite a few, so it pays to keep my hand in to make sure they keep buying from me.’

  ‘Yet when you spoke to Detective Styles, you said your son does that part of the business, and that you hadn’t been to London for over a year.’

  ‘Memory isn’t what it used to be at my age,’ Grantham said, tapping a finger against his head. ‘The days just seem to whizz past. Just got my dates wrong.’

  ‘Which parks did you visit?’

  ‘Not Victoria if that’s where you’re going with this.’

  ‘Which ones, then?’

  ‘Does it matte
r?’

  ‘Indulge me,’ Porter said with a friendly smile. ‘Talk to me about the January one.’

  Grantham looked at him like a schoolteacher humouring an inquisitive child. ‘If you must know, I visited Marc Booth at Kew, then on to Valentines Park. Old friend of mine, Jim Oswald, runs the place. Had a coffee with him and stayed maybe an hour. He’ll tell you the same if you call him.’

  ‘Unless I’m mistaken, Detective,’ Holmes cut in before Porter could ask another question, ‘that’s essentially the information your man asked for yesterday. My client has shared details of his trip, given you a corroborating witness, so unless there’s anything else, I think we can call it a day and let you get on with keeping our streets safe.’

  Holmes had a pomposity about him, the sort of person that Porter took great delight in cutting down to size, pulling the rug from under their feet. Now seemed as good a time as any to start.

  ‘Tell me about your grandchildren, Mr Grantham,’ he said, ignoring Holmes, watching Grantham instead for a reaction.

  It was like watching a ripple spread in a pond. A host of twitches and tics, starting from the eyes, spreading outwards.

  ‘What?’ The question came out croaky, hoarse, caught off guard.

  ‘We spoke with your son earlier, on the basis that he runs a lot of the business side now. You’d told my colleague that you’d been to Victoria Park before with your grandchildren, but not for a while.’

  ‘Detective—’ Holmes began, but Porter spoke over the top of him, still fixed on Grantham.

  ‘I know the memory isn’t what it used to be,’ he said, mimicking the tap against the side of his head from earlier, ‘but your son told us what happened to them, how they died. Boy and a girl, I believe, and how they were the same ages as the bodies we found in Victoria Park.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Stephen Holmes clamped a beefy hand on Daniel Grantham’s forearm.

  ‘I don’t know what exactly you think you’re doing, Detective, but I think we’ve reached the limits of my client’s patience and cooperation.’

  He started gathering his things: notepad, pen. Grantham still looked a little dazed, and Porter pressed a little harder.

  ‘I know what happened to them, Mr Grantham. To your grandchildren and your daughter. I know about the car crash.’

  Miles Grantham had shared the sad tale with Styles. How his sister, Samantha, and her two children, Marie and Ben, had died in a car crash. Their father had been driving, three times over the limit. As happens all too often, fate was overly cruel, killing Samantha and her kids, sparing her husband, or at least his life anyway. He stood trial for death by dangerous driving once he had recovered from his injuries. No surprises when he was convicted.

  The flowers. The leather rose gauntlets. The concealed trip on the day Libby disappeared. Porter knew coincidences existed, but when a host of circumstantial pieces started to float into view, you ignored their collective weight at your peril.

  ‘That must have left such a hole in your world,’ Porter said, feeling the echo from his own, still there regardless of his own life partially rebuilding. ‘Can’t even imagine what that would do to a person. Losing them like that, to have them ripped away. Could quite literally break someone, make them see things through a broken lens. Do things to get back to that perfect family life. Things that might be so wrong but they just can’t see it for grief.’

  The only sign Grantham had heard him was a slow shake of the head, lips pressed together in a thin line.

  ‘The parents of those nine children are grieving just as much. Libby Hallforth’s parents, too. All I want to do is help them with that. To stop any more parents from having to go through the same. I’d hope someone who’s experienced that first-hand would want the same.’

  ‘We’re done here,’ said Holmes, pushing up from the table. ‘If anyone speaks to my client again without coming through me first, we’ll be looking at a harassment case. This is nothing more than a fishing expedition, and now you’re looking to question a man’s grief for his grandchildren. I’ve half a mind to speak to—’

  ‘Sit down, Stephen.’

  Grantham’s voice was weary, as if he’d not slept in days. Anticipation fizzed through Porter. The old man’s posture softened, the precursor to something, but Porter didn’t want to jump the gun and hope for too much.

  ‘Daniel, I’m not going to sit here and let them accuse you of—’

  ‘Please’ he said, sounding hoarse, but with the strength creeping back in. ‘It’s alright. Sit back down.’

  Holmes looked from Grantham to Porter and back again, wearing a can you believe this guy expression, but did as his client instructed.

  ‘I’d strongly advise you and I have a conversation before you answer any more questions, Daniel.’

  ‘Understood, but really, it’s alright.’ He leant back, taking slow measured breaths, building up to something. Porter wanted to jump in, press home the advantage, unpick whatever thoughts were tangled around Grantham’s tongue. It took a long few seconds, but when the old man finally spoke, he was calm and measured.

  ‘Have you lost someone close, Detective?’

  ‘My wife,’ Porter said, nodding. No benefit from keeping it to himself. Might help establish a connection. ‘Died in a hit and run.’

  Grantham looked him straight in the eye, held his gaze. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss. Did they catch them?’

  Porter just shook his head in response.

  ‘That’s what people don’t get. Those who haven’t been through what we have. They don’t get the sense of injustice. Your wife’s killer is walking around out there, no need to answer for what they did. My son-in-law nearly died from his injuries, but in the end, he pulled through. He was spared and they weren’t. He went to prison, but is that really a good enough punishment for what he did? A few years in exchange for a life? People like him, they get to walk around, breathing the air that my grandchildren should be breathing.’

  His eyes glistened, not quite full, but damp with emotion.

  ‘You’re right,’ Porter said. ‘It’s not fair, but we can’t make up our own rules and punishments.’

  ‘Can’t we?’ Definite steel in Grantham’s words now.

  Porter shook his head. ‘That makes us as bad as they are. The kids on the island in Victoria Park, they’re the real victims here. The way they were buried, it meant something to whoever put them there. Dressed up cosy in their pyjamas, laid out in pairs. You can’t bring Ben and Marie back, Daniel, but you can help give the parents of those kids some peace. Help me to help them. We still need names for half of them. What were their names, Daniel?’

  Grantham had been staring at the wall, but his eyes snapped back to Porter now. ‘You still think this was me? Have you not been listening to a word I’m saying? I have no idea who put them there. This is about my trips to London. To Valentines Park.’

  Porter frowned. ‘What does Valentines Park have to do with Victoria Park?’

  ‘Nothing. It has to do with my son-in-law, Graeme.’

  ‘You’ve lost me. What’s somebody who’s locked up got to do with any of this?’

  ‘He’s not a prisoner any more.’

  Porter did a double take. ‘He’s been released? Since when?’

  Grantham leant forwards, moving fast for his age, shaking his head. ‘He’s been out five years now. Twelve months is all he served. Appealed based on some sort of cock-up regarding the tests on his blood alcohol level.’

  Porter hated being blindsided like that, but shook it off and continued, committed to the line of questioning now.

  ‘All the same, Mr Grantham, whether he’s in or out, it’s you I’m interested in right now.’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ Grantham said, half-shouting now. ‘I didn’t hurt anyone. I could never hurt a child.’

  There was something about the way the emphasis kicked in at the end of the sentence.

  ‘But …’ Porter prompted.

  �
�But I could damn well hurt someone who would.’

  ‘What are you saying, Mr Grantham?’

  ‘I’m saying that my son-in-law deserves to die for what he did to Ben and Marie, and Samantha.’ He added his daughter almost as an afterthought. ‘I went to Valentines Park to find him, and make him pay. I went there to kill him.’

  Two trains of thought raced neck and neck through Porter’s mind. First, and most obvious, was that Daniel Grantham had just admitted to plotting his son-in-law’s murder. Out of the blue, and not where Porter had thought this was heading at all, but something that couldn’t be ignored.

  On top of that, however, his theory about Daniel Grantham being on some kind of grief-triggered spree, blinded to his own actions, had taken a sideways shunt onto another track entirely. Graeme Gibson had suffered loss too, maybe even more traumatic, with him being the cause. Could he be the man they were looking for, or was this a clever play from Grantham? A misdirection. Porter’s pulse quickened. Either way, it felt like things had crested, about to pick up pace on the way down to the finish.

  ‘Where is he now? Your son-in-law?’

  ‘Last I heard he was working in Valentines Park.’

  ‘And you went there to confront him on 26th January.’

  Grantham nodded. ‘I did. A friend of mine told me he’d been doing some short-term contract landscaping work there. Those first two trips,’ he said, looking down at his hands, thumb absentmindedly stroking the knuckles on his other hand, ‘I saw him, both times, but it was like I was paralysed, you know. There was this man who’d killed my daughter, my grandkids, and I wanted to hurt him. Make him suffer, and I just … I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even bring myself to confront him. Then that last time, that was the anniversary. I’m never in a good place around then, and I came in for a third trip. Went for a quick drink to find the courage to go and confront him, at least. One led to far too many, and it was like a dam had burst, all that hate and anger pouring out, fuelled by the whisky. This time, I thought, this time I can do it. Make him pay.’