by J M Gregson
Lambert nodded. If DI Rushton said there were no other realistic suspects from the squat, he trusted him absolutely. No one was more thorough than Chris in recording every snippet of information and in seizing upon facts which others might have missed or overlooked. Lambert said, ‘To those two we can add three men who had close associations with the murder victim and who lived near the spot where she was hastily interred after she’d been killed: Jim Simmons, Andrew Burrell and Liam Williams. We’ve interrogated the first two of these pretty thoroughly. Liam Williams was killed in an RTI in 2007, but we’ve twice spoken to his father. Steve Williams as you know is an old enemy of ours, and thus well aware of his rights and exactly what we can and can’t do to him.’
Hook smiled grimly at the mention of Williams. He knew that Lambert, whilst being far too professional to be anything other than objective, would love to be able to implicate Steve Williams in a murder inquiry. He said, ‘If this murder was committed by a dead man, there will obviously be a swift closure. But we need to establish the facts, if only in the interests of our other suspects, who have a lot to lose if the media get hold of the information that they’ve been involved in our investigation.’
Rushton said almost proprietorially, ‘The two who were with the victim in the squat at the time of her death are the ones with the easiest opportunities. On his own admission, Michael Wallington was selling drugs and Julie was a user. We think he tried to recruit her as a seller. If she refused to become a dealer in his network or threatened to expose him, he’d want rid of her. And if he didn’t wish to kill her himself there’d be plenty of muscle available to him if he gave the word to the people higher up the drug hierarchy.’
Lambert nodded. ‘He says that he didn’t get to that point with Julie, and that he wasn’t high enough in the drugs empire to implement that kind of killing. But in the immortal words of a young lady in another context, he would, wouldn’t he? Wallington is a bright man who’s made the most of his subsequent opportunities and now has a senior local authority job in education. But I wouldn’t trust anything he says when he’s fighting to preserve his own skin.’
Rushton said almost diffidently, ‘I saw Kate Clark myself briefly, but you two have interviewed her twice since then. What do you make of her?’
Lambert smiled ruefully. ‘Ms Clark’s a tough cookie, as no doubt she’s had to be to reach the board of one of our great national utility companies. She’s very anxious that her position and aspirations at Severn Trent aren’t compromised by her involvement in a murder inquiry. But she can’t alter certain facts. She was by her own admission – and this tallies with other accounts we’ve heard – the female who was closest to Julie Grimshaw, both spiritually and physically, during those crucial months in the summer of 1995. Much of what we know of Julie comes from her; we have to remember constantly that she has her own interests to protect. She’ll fight like a cornered tiger to protect herself, though that doesn’t mean that she’s committed murder or manslaughter.’
Bert Hook had been impressed by the woman who in 1995 had been Kathy Clark. He was striving to be objective as he said, ‘Ms Clark was by her own admission a fairly desperate and disturbed young woman when she was in that squat twenty years ago. Violence is part of the way of life for people living on the edge of society, as the people at seventeen Fairfax Street were. She’s a woman who would no doubt be quite capable of violence if she thought it was necessary. My guess is that she also keeps in check a fierce temper beneath a calm exterior. I don’t see her committing cold-blooded murder, but I could see her committing manslaughter – perhaps by striking a blow to the head with some sort of implement in the course of a violent disagreement with a friend who everyone says was unstable.’
Lambert nodded. ‘That’s speculation, but it’s an example of why we’re meeting here as an experienced trio. I wouldn’t want speculation among twenty people when I conduct a team meeting, but in the privacy of this office we three should be prepared to say exactly how things strike us. So what do you make of Jim Simmons? He was working his way into a senior position at Lower Valley Farm in 1995, favoured by the owner and his wife and anxious to do whatever he could to please them. We know that the older Burrells wanted to be rid of Julie because they fiercely disapproved of her liaison with their son. Did Simmons see an opportunity for himself there? Did he dispose of Julie one night and bury her hurriedly near the edge of the ground he knew so well and worked every day?
‘Andrew Burrell made the point that he was quite happy for Simmons to assume the running of the farm, but was surprised when his parents actually transferred ownership to him at a bargain price. Andrew has his own agenda, of course, but it seems a valid point. Was Daniel Burrell fulfilling some sort of unwritten understanding when he transferred the farm?’
Rushton said unexpectedly, ‘But what is a fair price for a small mixed farm nowadays? I had no idea, but I’ve made certain enquiries among local agricultural agents. It’s difficult to make a small farm pay and you work damned hard to do it. Lower Valley Farm is in a secluded pocket of land near the Wye. Because of its isolation it doesn’t interest the big concerns who operate factory farms in areas like the Salisbury Plain: they want to consolidate farms into much bigger units. Simmons got a good deal, but not an outlandish one. The sort which might be acceptable to both sides when the seller had a soft spot for his purchaser. Favourable to Jim Simmons, but not necessarily suspiciously so.’
Lambert was once again grateful to his DI for his thoroughness. ‘Thank you, Chris. That’s a relevant fact, when facts are thin upon the ground. I suppose we should expect them to be so after an interval of twenty years. I found Simmons rather irritating in the way he seemed to wish to parade his charming wife and his equally charming children in front of us. I wondered if his eagerness to show himself as a sound and reliable family man meant that he had something to hide from that earlier era. But I’m probably just a cynical old copper who’s seen too many villains parading attractive wives as shields against us.’
Hook, who’d spent most of his boyhood and adolescence after the Barnardo’s home working on farms, couldn’t withhold a certain respect from his judgement on Simmons. ‘For what it’s worth – and I’m well aware that it doesn’t mean he’s incapable of murder – Jim Simmons is a good farmer and he works damned hard for whatever success he enjoys. No one has claimed that he had a close relationship with Julie Grimshaw, though they all seem to think she liked him. I suppose it’s possible that he had some sort of secret association with her, but that seems unlikely. His one plausible motive seems to be his ambition to own and run his own farm.’ He paused, then in the interests of balance added reluctantly, ‘But that can be a powerful one, for a countryman.’
Lambert said briskly, ‘Andrew Burrell. I didn’t much like him, but that’s totally irrelevant to our inquiry. He tried to deceive us when we first saw him last Tuesday, and every fact we’ve elicited from him we’ve had to wring out of him. A leading candidate for this crime, because he was heavily involved with Julie. So much so that his parents were very anxious to send the girl away and end the affair. By his own account, he wanted to marry the girl or at least to live with her. He claims that it was all over between them by the time of her death, but the others who were close to the pair seem less certain about that. Fact: Andrew Burrell had secured a place at Liverpool University, which he was determined to take up at the end of September. Did he want to be rid of Julie for that reason? Was she clinging to him and refusing to be simply shrugged off? On the other hand, did the affair end acrimoniously and was it Burrell who was bitter about that? Did jealousy drive him to violence when he saw her taking up with someone else? Those are all questions we could explore much more easily if this death had occurred last week. Answers are much more difficult to find in the case of a crime which was committed twenty years ago. Andrew Burrell has exploited that: he’s given us nothing. We’ve had to work hard for everything we now know about him and Julie.’
Hook, li
ke his chief, was on new ground with a death which had occurred so long ago. ‘The worst thing about this is that there are people we can no longer question. There are still people who were in that squat who haven’t come forward. We don’t even know their names and unless they answer our appeals we’ll never find them. And there are people who are dead who could have given us valuable insights. Emily Burrell died three years ago; she could have given us information and opinions on her son Andrew, on Jim Simmons and even on Kate Clark. And we can’t even question a man who has to be one of our leading suspects, Liam Williams, because he’s been dead for eight years.’
Lambert nodded, noting that Rushton looked a little surprised by this description of the dead Williams. ‘It’s taken us some time to establish Liam Williams as a suspect, because people have been reluctant to acknowledge how close he was to Julie at the time of her death. It’s another difficulty when following up a crime twenty years after it’s happened. Andrew Burrell in particular was very reluctant to acknowledge the part Liam had played in this. It seems that Liam was a rival for Julie’s affections. Andrew says that he’d dropped out of contention in order to pursue his studies in Liverpool and that there was no serious dispute between him and Liam. It’s possible of course that Burrell was much more bitter than he admits and took out Julie as a result. Or even that Liam killed her after some lover’s tiff if she threatened to desert him or go back to Andrew. We need to know exactly what part Liam played in this, but he isn’t around to question. His mother seems to be emotionally crippled by her son’s death. As for Steve Williams, he wouldn’t give us the time of day if he could avoid it.’
John Lambert shook his head at the hopelessness of the case, at the obfuscations introduced by an interim of twenty years and the absence of key witnesses. Yet the phone call which would provide him with the key was but a couple of hours away.
Michael Wallington spent two hours playing the happy family man. He wanted to be entirely conventional. He became almost a walking caricature of normal fatherhood.
He ate with the family and asked Tom and Jane how they had fared in the first day of their school week. He congratulated eight-year-old Tom on his arithmetic and his football; he echoed his wife’s enthusiasm for five-year-old Jane’s gold star for her collage work. He loaded the dishwasher and then read bedtime stories, first for a very tired Jane and then for a more ebullient Tom. The boy wanted another chapter, but his father looked at his watch and was firm. ‘You need your sleep if you’re to race down the wing and leave Darren Wilson behind you tomorrow, son,’ Michael said firmly.
The boy lay back and looked at the ceiling. ‘Who was Doubting Thomas, Dad?’
Michael’s theology was sketchy, but he could cope with this. ‘He was the one of Christ’s apostles who was doubtful about Him having risen from the dead. He said he would actually need to see his Lord before him before he was prepared to believe that He was back with them.’ Michael had no wish to go into the business of Thomas touching the holes in his master’s hands before he would believe: that was far too ghoulish for a lad who needed his sleep.
‘John Pooley said Thomas put his fingers into the holes where they’d nailed Christ to the cross, and wriggled them around. That was a bit creepy, don’t you think? But Pooley’s dad’s a vicar, so it must be right.’ Tom settled down beneath the sheets with a contented smile.
Michael went downstairs and said to his wife, ‘I have a meeting, I’m afraid, dear. I’m hoping it won’t take very long.’
Debbie was tidying away toys and making the sitting room habitable for adults. ‘Do you have to? There’s nothing on the calendar for tonight.’
‘No, there wouldn’t be. It’s not a formal meeting, it’s just a one-off. Two people who want to confer with me off the record about the possibilities of getting specialist help for slow readers.’ It was always easier if you claimed you were helping the disadvantaged; no one questioned your motives if you cited the disabled or the mentally handicapped or slow learners.
His wife sighed resignedly. ‘You’re too conscientious for your own good at times, Mike. Don’t let these people keep you out any longer than they need to.’
‘I won’t, but I have to give them my time when it’s needed. Think how desperate you would be for help, if our two were suffering. You look tired, darling. I’ll be back as quickly as I can, but don’t bother to wait up if I should be delayed.’
These were the longest days of the year. He was impatient for the night to arrive. Michael didn’t know quite why, but darkness seemed appropriate for the confrontation he was planning. Dusk had arrived and cars had their lights on by the time he drove into the suburb of Tewkesbury and sought out the residence he wanted. It was a pleasant place, as he would have expected, with a view of the Severn to the rear. He could see the glint of the last light on a stretch of the great river as he parked the car. The flats were a conversion of a spacious Georgian house about a mile above Tewkesbury Abbey and the centre, safe from the flooding which was one of the perennial hazards in some areas of the ancient town.
He hesitated for a moment before he rang the bell, wondering how he was going to introduce himself at this late hour and after all this time. It was very quiet here. He thought he could hear the distant sound of the river, running low at the end of the drought; the forecast said there would be rain before morning. She opened the door more quickly than he’d anticipated, throwing the full blaze of the light behind her on to his face, catching his moment of surprise and apprehension as he fought to produce words.
‘I’m sorry to call so late. My name is Michael Wallington. I don’t suppose that means anything to you, but we were—’
‘I know who you are. I recognized you. I can guess why you’re here. I feel I was almost expecting you, somehow. You’d better come in.’
Kate Clark turned and led the way into a spacious, pleasant lounge. The developer had preserved the long Georgian windows and one of them was open six inches at the bottom. She switched off the television and he could definitely hear the sound of the Severn now, a soft surge over stones, sounding surprisingly close through the gathering darkness. She looked out and then drew the curtains, though no one could observe them here.
Then she turned to him, motioned him to sit in an armchair. She studied his face for a moment before she sat down opposite him. She said, ‘You haven’t changed much, you know. The stubble’s gone and you’ve filled out a bit, but I’d still recognize you.’
He felt that he should offer her the routine compliment, tell her that she too hadn’t changed much, that he’d have recognized her immediately although twenty years had passed. That was the sort of thing people said, even though women didn’t believe it. He sensed this woman wouldn’t want it, might despise him for it if he voiced it. He said, ‘I expect the police have been in touch with you.’
Kate gave him her first smile, but it was impersonal rather than friendly, an acknowledgement that they had suffered similar embarrassments. ‘They have indeed. Three times, if you count the initial contact from a rather handsome Detective Inspector. That was on Wednesday. Then the man in charge and what I think they call his bagman visited me on Thursday afternoon and again on Saturday afternoon.’ She enjoyed the precision. She always went for accuracy in her working life; it often seemed to give her an advantage. ‘They wanted to hear all about me and Julie Grimshaw. They wanted to know everything I could tell them about you, as well.’
She hadn’t offered him a drink or any kind of hospitality and she’d come straight to the point. She’d worn well, he thought. She must be around forty-three years old now, he reckoned. But she looked less than that. Not having children probably helped, he thought, making automatic allowances for his Debbie and her very different way of life. This woman had short dark hair which framed her broad, strong face very pleasingly. He’d never found grey eyes very attractive but these ones were, wide and bright on either side of a rather sharp nose.
He knew now that she would be irritated rather
than pleased by any physical compliments. He said, ‘You’ve come a long way since we were together at seventeen Fairfax Street.’
‘Is that the address? I couldn’t even remember it.’
He doubted whether that was true. She was too meticulous a woman for her recall to be patchy. But he said, ‘I suppose we’ve both spent twenty years trying to forget about the events of 1995.’
‘Not the events. I’ve tried to forget about my lifestyle then and the way we lived from hand to mouth in that house in Gloucester. But I’ve no reason to erase the events from my mind. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of in 1995.’
Michael smiled, trying to lighten the tension, to establish some sort of bond between them. ‘I’ve nothing to be ashamed of either. Both of us need to convince the police of that.’
Kate Clark folded her arms, well aware that her body language was shutting him out. She was refusing or at least delaying the kind of agreement he wanted. ‘You’ve more to hide than I have. I wasn’t dealing drugs, or even using them. I didn’t try to induce a girl who we now know became a murder victim to become a drug seller. I’d say you have a lot more to hide than I have, Mick.’
She used the diminutive almost like an obscenity, recalling to him that world he was trying to obscure. Her own recall was vivid enough. She’d been frightened of this man in the squat, where he’d dealt drugs and had money and seemed to control everyone who lived in that house. She’d been careful not to annoy him then, even though she’d maintained her independence. The boot was on the other foot now: he’d made a journey on the edge of darkness to meet her in secret and ask for her support. The man who’d issued orders and treated her with a surly truculence at Fairfax Street had now come here begging for favours.
Kate said, ‘The police asked me a series of questions about Mick, who dealt in drugs. I told them what I remembered of those months in 1995. We’re involved in a murder case, Michael, and the fuzz don’t take kindly to attempts to deceive them.’ She wouldn’t tell him that she’d held back as much as she could at her first meeting with Lambert and Hook, that they’d treated her almost as a hostile witness when they’d come here for the second time on Saturday.