Skeleton Plot

by J M Gregson

  Kate was conscious of no exchange between the two, but DS Hook now looked up from his notes and took over the questioning. ‘You reminded us a moment ago that you went to Lower Valley Farm with Julie. As you know, that’s where her body was buried. Tell us what you remember about the people there, please.’

  She managed a smile into the rubicund face of this less threatening figure. ‘That’s rather a wide brief, because there were a lot of people there, as I remember it. But I’ll do my best. The old people who owned the place were quite kind to us, at first. I think Andrew had told them about how he was rescuing these girls from the squat in Fairfax Street, because they seemed quite sorry for us. I didn’t go as often as Julie did and they still seemed to be sympathetic towards me. But when they realized that Andrew was serious about Julie and wanted to take it further, they turned against her. And Julie told me she’d gone there stoned and done unpardonable things. I wasn’t with her on that day, but when we went there together again I could see that the older Burrells didn’t want her around any more.’

  ‘Emily Burrell isn’t here for us to question: she died three years ago. Daniel Burrell, Andrew’s father, is now eighty-four and in a care home. But he and his wife were vigorous sixty-four-year-olds at the time of Julie’s death. They were very protective of their only son. Do you feel that either or both of them might have been involved in Julie’s murder?’

  ‘No. I never got to know them well, but I don’t think either of them would have been involved in murder.’

  ‘Or manslaughter? We don’t know that the blow which killed Julie was meant to be fatal. It might have been the culmination of some altercation which strayed into violence.’

  ‘I obviously can’t discount that possibility. But you asked me what I felt. And I feel that the Burrells weren’t the kind of people who would have done this and buried the body in secret at the edge of their land.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Hook glanced at his chief. ‘It seems unlikely to us also, but we have to take every possibility into consideration. What did you make of Andrew Burrell in those days?’

  It was said very casually, but Kate was well aware that she was being asked to assess a murder suspect. She was one herself, so this was competitive. She’d enjoyed competition as she’d risen through the ranks of industry – thrived upon it, in fact. But this was a life and death competition; she felt her pulses racing at that thought. ‘I didn’t see Andrew that often. I wasn’t at Lower Valley Farm as often as Julie.’

  ‘But you had time to form an impression. And Julie was your friend. She must have talked to you about him.’

  Kate wanted to remind them yet again of how long ago this was. But that would have seemed defensive. It would have sounded as if she had something to hide. ‘I thought him a bit of a wimp, I think. He even objected to being called Andy. Remember that I was living in a squat, so perhaps I despised anyone who seemed to be taking the safe option. He’d got himself a place at university and was going off to it in the autumn. Somewhere in the north, I think.’

  ‘Liverpool.’

  ‘Was it?’ She was shaken by the reminder that they’d already spoken to Andrew and to others and knew all sorts of things that she did not. Was Hook reminding her that she needed to tell them the truth? ‘Andrew seemed very taken with Julie, at first. She was a pretty girl, when she chose to show it, so that wasn’t surprising. But I think he was attracted to the idea of saving her from the squat and from drugs; you get romantic notions when you’re as wet behind the ears as Andrew was at that time. And when his parents disapproved, he dug his toes in all the harder, as young men do.’ Kate Clark was happy to give the impression that she hadn’t a lot of time for young men.

  ‘Why did he and Julie break up?’

  ‘I don’t know that. I thought that for him the novelty had worn off. I warned her that his university place was the important thing for Andrew and that he was going to ditch her when he went off to take it up. But that was just my view. I don’t know what actually happened. It might have been Julie who ditched him.’

  ‘Do you think they had a major row of some kind? Or did they part on good terms?’

  He was cleverer than he looked, this detective sergeant. He made you offer your opinions; he encouraged you to speculate and reveal more than you’d intended. More than you’d intended about yourself too, perhaps. Kate determined to be careful. ‘I’ve no idea. I just assumed they’d split up, when she went off so suddenly. Now we know that she hadn’t gone off at all, that someone had killed her. Perhaps they didn’t split up. But I thought that all wasn’t well between them, from the few things Julie let out to me when we were trying to get to sleep in Fairfax Street.’

  ‘I see.’ Hook made a brief note and she wondered what he was writing. ‘What about Jim Simmons, who was living on the site and working full-time on the farm?’

  It was an abrupt switch, perhaps designed to catch her off guard, to make her reveal more than she’d intended to about Simmons. But she’d prepared what she would say about him before they came. ‘He was polite enough, but he didn’t seem very interested in Julie. Or me, for that matter. He was a good-looking man who didn’t find it difficult to get girls. Perhaps he thought he could do better for himself than girls living in a squat. Julie and I and Andrew and Jim were all about the same age, but Jim was probably the most mature one among us.’

  ‘Too mature to have got himself involved in murder, do you think?’

  It was a competitive situation, this, as she’d already decided. Kate was reluctant to discard Simmons as a suspect; that might throw more suspicion on to herself. ‘From what Andrew said, I gathered that Jim could be quite violent. He’d already been involved in one or two serious fights. When Julie turned up stoned and was very rude to Mrs Burrell, Jim Simmons took her by the shoulders and shook her very roughly.’ She paused, wishing to give the impression that she was anxious to be fair. ‘But that’s very different from saying he was capable of murder or manslaughter, isn’t it? He was very attached to the Burrells; he said they’d been very good to him. I gather that Simmons is now the owner of the farm. Perhaps he was playing his cards very carefully in 1995, with Andrew off to university and plainly uninterested in farming.’

  Hook nodded slowly, as if he hoped that his agreement might lure more revelations from her. ‘Was there anyone else around at the time who showed any interest in Julie Grimshaw?’

  ‘There was Liam, of course, the boy from the house which was nearest to the farm.’

  Kate Clark’s face was open but unrevealing beneath the neat dark hair. There was no indication in her bearing that she knew that she’d just delivered a bombshell.

  Jim Simmons was the visitor whom Daniel Burrell liked most of all. Jim took him out into the gardens of the care home whenever the weather allowed it, so that Dan could feel the sun on his face and the breeze around his ageing body.

  But there was more than that to his enjoyment. They never had awkward pauses and desperate searches for things to talk about, as he had with most of his visitors, however well-meaning they were. He could talk to Jim about Lower Valley Farm, about the problems of cultivation and livestock, about the impact of the changing seasons, about the things which had preoccupied him and his predecessors for at least the last two centuries, since the boundaries of the farm had been defined.

  They were sitting on this Saturday evening on a seat facing west, watching the vivid crimson over the Welsh hills which guaranteed them a fine day for the morrow. The corn was looking very good indeed, Jim reported, knowing how it had been a perennial concern of the well-wrapped old man beside him. He was hopeful of a record crop if they got good weather for the harvest. Prices as usual would be in other, more anonymous, non-rural hands, and prices would determine the degree of profit. The two had the ritual grumble over that which they had regularly exchanged when Dan had been in control of the farm and Jim had been his increasingly trusted acolyte.

  Then they sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, wa
tching crimson turn to purple over the scene, seeing the detail disappear as the mountains became silhouettes against the dying light, sharing the thought which neither of them voiced that this scene had not changed in many centuries. Eventually, Daniel said, ‘It’s not a bad place, this. Everything’s laid on for you and the girls are kind.’ Every female under sixty was a girl for Dan. ‘But you miss things; they can’t help that. You miss sitting down after a hard day’s graft and knowing you’ve achieved something.’

  ‘Aye. You’ve always been an active man, Dan. But you have to slow down sometime.’

  Another pause, whilst the old man nodded slowly, resentfully. ‘You can’t do owt about age. No bugger can.’

  ‘No. I expect you miss Emily, too. I know I do.’

  Dan Burrell was more grateful than he could have imagined for the mention of his dead wife. People skirted around it, thought it would upset you when it wouldn’t. He wanted to tell people how much he’d loved Emily, how much she’d meant to him. But men didn’t go on about things like that, did they? Not his generation of men. He’d never have found the right words. Now he simply said, ‘She was a good woman, Emily. Good to everyone, not just to me.’

  ‘She was, Dan. Good to everyone. I still remember how kind she was to me, when I was a daft lad still looking to make my way in farming.’

  Dan smiled. ‘It was Em who said you should have the farm, you know, when it turned out Andrew didn’t want it. Persuaded me that you’d keep it going and make a job of it.’

  ‘I think I knew that. I’ll always be grateful to her.’

  ‘She was a wise woman as well as a kind woman, my Em. It was she who told me to let Andrew go without throwing him out of our lives.’

  ‘She was right, you know. Andrew didn’t want to fall out with you. He’s just different from us. He doesn’t feel the same way as we do about the land.’

  ‘He’s different, all right.’ For a moment, an old resentment clouded Daniel’s face. ‘He comes to see me, sometimes. Not as often as he should, perhaps. But I don’t blame him, because we don’t have much to talk about. Not like you and me.’

  ‘Thanks for letting me know that the fuzz had been to see you about that skeleton.’

  ‘I didn’t tell them much. Well, I couldn’t.’

  ‘It was Julie, you know, the skeleton. That lass Andrew brought home.’

  ‘Yes. They didn’t know that, when they came to see me.’

  ‘Probably best you don’t tell them anything more than you have to about Andrew and Julie. Or me and Julie, for that matter.’

  ‘Aye. Probably best. But I don’t remember anything, do I?’ The old man smiled enigmatically towards the outline of the hills. ‘Best go in now, I think. It’s getting quite dark.’

  Hazel Williams usually came to the cemetery at this time. Saturday evening on the edge of dark was the quietest time of all. A lot of people visited the graves during the day. There were fresh flowers on many of them and she enjoyed the freshness and the colours. But in the evening she had the place to herself.

  She could still feel very close to Liam here, though she had to work at it more than in the early days. It was eight years now; people who cared for her sometimes reminded her of that. She knew that he wasn’t really here, that the real Liam had left her and left this world some time ago now. But when she sat here on a silent June evening like this, she could forget that. She could convince herself that he was still here, still speaking to her, living on with her in this strange world which only she knew and which she did not want to leave.

  ‘It’s peaceful here, isn’t it?’

  She leapt as if the words had been pins stuck into her lean body. She hadn’t known that there was anyone there, hadn’t heard the footfall of any approach. But it was only Steve. Hazel didn’t know why she thought ‘only’. She didn’t want him here, any more than she wanted anyone else. Less than she wanted anyone else, now that she thought about it. She said, as though he was a stranger, ‘Why have you come here?’

  ‘Because I want to remember our son too. Because I want to be with you.’

  Both eminently reasonable things to say. And both ideas she wanted to reject. Liam was hers and this place was hers. She didn’t want anyone coming here and interfering with that. Least of all Steve.

  He reached out his hand and put it on top of hers. She stared at it for a moment and let it lie there. As soon as she felt she could, she slid her hand out from under his. She didn’t want him next to her, didn’t want the smell of him, didn’t want to hear the sound of his steady breathing beside her.

  Hazel wasn’t sure how many minutes passed before she said, ‘This is my place. Mine and Liam’s.’

  Steve Williams said, ‘You’ve got to let me in.’

  Another long pause while she calmly reviewed that claim. Then, ‘I don’t have to do anything, Steve.’

  ‘I want to look after you. I want to protect you. I don’t want those damned coppers disturbing you.’

  ‘I don’t need your protection, Steve. I’m not afraid of the police.’

  They were simple statements. But they sounded to both of them like the most damning things she had ever said.

  FIFTEEN

  Mike Wallington’s study was at the front of the detached modern house, insulated from the family noise of kitchen and playroom at the rear. He took the two CID men in there and shut the door carefully behind him. Everything was pleasingly ordered in here, with his computer containing the information which would once have been in a filing cabinet and the few paper files he needed stacked neatly upright on the bottom level of the well-stocked bookshelves. Mike had grown used to feeling safe in here, away from the shrill voices of children and the small, recurrent crises of family life.

  He didn’t feel safe now. He said, ‘We shan’t be disturbed in here,’ and gave a small giggle which showed him and them how nervous he felt.

  Lambert looked unhurriedly round the room, letting the silence stretch as he and Hook seated themselves carefully upon the upright chairs in front of Wallington’s desk. He said, ‘I trust you’ve now remembered some of the things you couldn’t recall when we spoke on Friday, Mr Wallington.’

  ‘It’s a long time since 1995. A lot of things have happened in the world and to me since then. I’ve been determined to put that time in the squat behind me. That means that I’ve deliberately thrust those days out of my mind as thoroughly as possible.’

  ‘I see. Other people who were in seventeen Fairfax Street at that time have put the same argument to us. But they’ve remembered a surprising amount, once they’ve put their minds to it and received a few reminders from me and the rest of our murder team.’

  Michael forced a smile he did not feel. ‘May I ask who these people are who have such eminent powers of recall?’

  ‘You may not, Mr Wallington. Information revealed in the course of our enquiries is confidential. I’m sure you will find that reassuring, in the light of what you are going to tell us this morning.’

  Michael looked hard into Lambert’s cool grey eyes, wondering exactly what his rights were here. The detective was being offensive, in his controlled, laid-back way, but Mike didn’t feel that he could respond aggressively. He knew that he was a private citizen voluntarily helping the police with their enquiries; in theory, he could withdraw his cooperation at any moment. But that wasn’t really an option. It would make him look guilty and encourage them to concentrate their enquiries around him. With the things he needed to hide, he couldn’t afford that. He said grudgingly, ‘I’ll help you all I can. But I don’t feel that my recall of events twenty years ago will be either comprehensive or completely reliable.’

  ‘I see. Well, we have established that some of the information you gave us a couple of days ago was not reliable. In the light of that I feel you should be aware that we have now spoken to other people who were in the squat, other people who knew Julie and met her outside the squat, and some of our officers who were policing the Fairfax Street area in 1995. You
would be most unwise to conceal anything which might help us, and still more unwise to offer us deliberate lies. The law takes a very dim view of people who obstruct the proper conduct of a murder investigation.’

  Wallington tried hard to show no reaction to this. He said as impassively as he could, ‘What is it you want to know?’

  ‘You need to tell us everything you can about Julie Grimshaw and her activities both inside and outside seventeen Fairfax Street. You need to tell us everything you can remember about the other members of that squat and their activities. You need to explain your own presence there and give us an account of the things you did there.’

  ‘I can’t add much to what I told you about Julie on Friday. She was a drug taker. Not an addict, I think, but I have no expertise in such matters.’ He glanced at them to see if there was any reaction to this, but learned nothing. ‘She had a friend, Kathy, whom I mentioned to you on Friday. I don’t think there was any sexual association between them, as there was between some women in squats, because as far as I could see both of them were straight. But I didn’t see a great deal of either of them, because the women spent most of their time on the first floor and the men on the ground floor in that house.’

  ‘What do you know about the people Julie met outside the squat?’

  It was a chance to spread the web of suspicion, to draw others into it as well as himself. He’d anticipated this, but he’d need to go carefully – he didn’t know what they’d already picked up from the array of other people Lambert had mentioned. ‘She was meeting a man. That was at the farm where she was eventually killed and buried, I think.’

  ‘Where she was buried, Mr Wallington. We haven’t established yet where Julie Grimshaw was killed.’