Silent as the Grave

by Paul Gitsham

  “Do you know who the source was?”

  “Sheehy didn’t say.”

  Windermere said nothing.

  “Anyway, Delmarno was known to be an unpleasant man to work for and so my father and Sheehy approached his gardener, Reggie Williamson. They persuaded him to steal the handgun.”

  “The same gun that appeared at the scene of a minor drugs bust three weeks later?”

  “Exactly. Ballistics matched it to Cruise’s murder and of course it had Delmarno’s fingerprints all over it. More importantly it gave them enough to raise a search warrant and find the evidence that linked Delmarno with their case.”

  Windermere chewed his lip thoughtfully. “It’s a compelling theory, but there are a lot of questions.” He spread his fingers out, enumerating each point.

  “First, why would Sheehy confess all of this to you? He’s in enough trouble as it is. I’m assuming you recorded the conversation?”

  Warren said nothing, his guilty expression enough.

  “Bloody hell, Warren, that’s basic procedure.” Windermere let out a puff of breath. “OK, fair enough. It probably wouldn’t have stood up in court anyway. Next point, you don’t know who this informant is who supposedly tipped off your father and Sheehy. Is there any evidence that they even existed?”

  Warren shook his head, his frustration mounting.

  “Third point, Sheehy claims that your father was killed in revenge for the stitch-up. What about him? Surely he was just as guilty—why didn’t Delmarno go after him also? Why wait all this time then suddenly decide to try and get him sent down?”

  “My father was a fairly senior detective sergeant at the time; Sheehy was still a DC, part of a team. He probably escaped their attention.”

  “To be identified over twenty years later? How likely is that?”

  “Delmarno has made it clear that he wants revenge for what had happened to him. He’s probably been searching for the identity of those involved since he got out.” It sounded feeble even to Warren.

  “So let’s move on to this Reggie Williamson. Is there evidence linking him to the case? You’ve said that he was Delmarno’s gardener and general handyman—do you have proof of that?”

  Warren sighed. “No. There are no employment records or National Insurance records. He was listed as self-employed at that time.”

  “So we don’t even know that he knew Delmarno? Tell me about how he was killed.”

  Warren recounted the limited evidence that they had uncovered so far.

  “So there’s nothing to suggest that this was any more than a random stabbing?”

  “But why? Williamson was a shabbily dressed man with no money to speak of. He didn’t even have a mobile phone worth nicking.”

  “You and I know that, but that doesn’t mean his attacker did.”

  “But what about the lack of forensic evidence? Stabbing somebody’s a messy business. Surely they’d have left something behind?” He ploughed on before Windermere could interrupt, “And what about the single stab wound to the heart and the single kick to kill the dog?”

  “A lack of evidence is not going to stand up in court. And as to the method of killing—it could have been good luck, or perhaps the person has been doing kung fu down the local sports centre. It doesn’t mean they were a trained assassin.”

  Warren could see the scepticism in his former mentor’s eyes and he felt a surge of anger. “Dammit, Bob, this whole thing stinks.” He rose to his feet. “I’m sorry you can’t see that.”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger, Warren.” Windermere’s voice was calm, soothing. He placed a hand on the younger man’s shoulder.

  “You know how this works. You have to have all of your ducks in a row.”

  Warren nodded, mumbling an apology, taking his seat again.

  “OK, let’s assume that Sheehy is telling the truth. What about this coroner business? If his theory is true, then why would Delmarno kill him after all of these years? After all, he helped Delmarno cover up your father’s death. He did him a favour, after all.”

  “I don’t know,” Warren admitted. “It could have been a loose end that needed tidying up.”

  “So what evidence do we have that he was murdered, rather than killed in a drink-drive incident?”

  “It’s still all circumstantial,” Warren admitted, as he outlined what they had discovered about the accident and the interview and subsequent death of Zachary Eddleston.

  “It’s a pretty big coincidence, I’ll grant you that, but they do happen you know.” He raised a hand quickly. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate here.”

  “I can’t accept that. The day after Zachary Eddleston confesses to spiking Liebig’s drinks and possibly causing his death, he’s found at the bottom of the stairs in suspicious circumstances.”

  Windermere was silent, his eyes closed, thinking. Warren waited patiently. This was what he’d come for—the advice of his old friend and mentor.

  “First, are you sure that you aren’t seeing what you want to see?” He opened his eyes and looked squarely at Warren. Warren met his gaze unflinching.

  “Yes. Something isn’t right here. There’s too much for it to be a coincidence.” He leant forward. “Bob, you always told me that a detective should trust his gut. That if something didn’t feel right, he had to pursue it until it did feel right.”

  “Warren, I’ve always trusted your instincts, you know that, but I need you to be sure that you aren’t grabbing at straws. Let me propose another interpretation.” He took his glasses out of his pocket, as if they helped him think.

  “Gavin Sheehy gets himself into trouble; he knows he is going to be investigated by Professional Standards and he becomes desperate. Then in comes his replacement—none other than the son of his former colleague whom he worked with years ago. Maybe they did plant evidence, I don’t know, but the point is that he sees the opportunity to explain his problems away as a stitch-up, using you to help him.

  “So he takes a calculated risk. He confesses to you his part in bringing about an unsafe conviction all those years ago. He’s pretty certain that nothing can come of it; he makes sure that you aren’t recording him and even if you are it’ll never stand up in court. In the meantime he sees a way to solve the problem of Vinny Delmarno once and for all. Maybe he has been looking over his shoulder since the man was released. He kills Reggie Williamson and points you in the direction of Delmarno. That way he implicates Delmarno in the man’s killing and eliminates one of the few concrete links between him and Delmarno’s false conviction.”

  Warren sat back, stunned. “You think Sheehy killed Reggie Williamson?”

  “It’s at least a possibility.”

  Warren was thoughtful. “What about Liebig?”

  “Let’s suppose that it did take place in the way that you’ve worked out, but what if the person orchestrating the whole thing was Sheehy? He sets up the clues so they all point towards Delmarno. Did you get a description of the man who approached Eddleston the night that Liebig was killed?”

  “Not much, grey hair, middle-aged, small-to-average height and build. We were going to have him in to look at some mug shots of Delmarno to see if he recognised him.”

  “How would you describe Sheehy?”

  Warren sighed. “Grey hair, middle-aged, small-to-average height and build.”

  “Warren, I don’t know what happened here. I don’t know if Gavin Sheehy is innocent or not—all I know is that you have to be careful who you trust. Keep this to yourself, Warren.” He stuck out his hand. “You know that I am always here for you, and you can call me, day or night.”

  The conversation was over. Warren felt disappointed. He’d come here searching for answers, looking for clarity. All he had was more questions.

  Friday 6 April

  Good Friday

  Chapter 29

  The office was quiet on Good Friday. As far as most of the officers in the unit were concerned, both the Eddleston and Williamson cases were going now
here fast and so those who had booked time off for the long Easter weekend had taken it.

  Sutton and Warren knew otherwise of course and both men were in Warren’s office. Sutton was taking his jacket off; he’d just returned from the Good Friday service at his local church. It was another thing for Warren to feel guilty about; the previous night he’d cancelled his plans to visit Susan’s parents. When they’d asked if he would be joining them for Easter Sunday, he’d been non-committal and he’d fibbed when Bernice had asked if he had been to church on Thursday evening for the ritual washing of the feet. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to spend the weekend with her parents. Even if he could afford the time, he didn’t have the emotional energy to deal with them just now.

  Nevertheless he felt bad about not seeing Granddad Jack. The old man’s mood had picked up with the weather after the death of Nana Betty the previous winter, but Warren was still worried about him. He resolved to at least phone and wish him a happy Easter. If Susan had suspected his truthfulness she hadn’t said anything before she’d driven herself up to Warwickshire, simply promising to call when she got there.

  Sutton sat down heavily.

  “I’d hoped for a bit of divine inspiration, but nothing came.”

  “Perhaps I should try,” suggested Warren grimly. “We’re going in circles here.”

  The two men sighed as one. Warren was beginning to ask himself why they were in. Perhaps a day off would bring new insight. He looked at his own coat. He should just leave—go home and sleep on it. Sutton should do the same. He said as much.

  Two minutes later, neither man had moved.

  “It keeps coming back to the same question,” Warren started.

  “Who authorised that raid?” Sutton finished again.

  Windermere’s warning came to mind unbidden: be careful who you trust. Was whoever signed that order still in the force nearly a quarter of a century on? The office was quiet; everyone who had leave was off enjoying the pleasant weather, even DSI Grayson, who was no doubt at his club playing eighteen holes in the spring sunshine.

  Warren sat bolt upright. His sudden movement disturbed Sutton who had been staring into space. He opened his mouth, but Warren’s raised finger kept him silent.

  Fragments of ideas, half-thought-out notions, were slowly starting to coalesce.

  “Tony,” Warren started slowly, “you’ve known Detective Superintendent Grayson longer than I have. Where does he play golf?”

  Sutton frowned at the apparent non sequitur, before his eyes widened. “I have no idea. You don’t think…”

  “It’s just a thought, Tony,” cautioned Warren, trying to dampen his own growing excitement. If Sutton had confidently named a different club to the Allingham Golf Club, then Warren would have dropped the idea immediately as absurd.

  “Leave that question to one side. When did he join Middlesbury CID? He hasn’t been here very long, has he?”

  Sutton shook his head. “He was brought in a couple of weeks after Gavin was removed from post. His role was to run the unit and help clear up the mess whilst they looked for a new DCI to take over. When you were appointed, he stayed on to help settle you in—” his face twisted slightly “—and to take credit for all of our hard work.”

  Warren ignored the last comment—Sutton had made it clear many times what he thought of Grayson.

  Before Warren could interject, Sutton continued, “But what motive would he have to kill Reggie Williamson after all of these years? It looks as though they got away with it.” He shook his head. “Nah, I don’t buy it.”

  But Warren was on a roll. The germ of an idea was now growing. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, writing “GRAYSON” in block capitals in the centre and circling it.

  “Humour me,” Warren instructed. “First question: was Grayson in the force back in 1988? And did he have any influence back then?”

  Sutton nodded. “I think so, although I’ve no idea what rank he held.”

  Warren pulled over a separate piece of paper and wrote ‘Questions?’ at the top of it and ‘Grayson’s service record’ underneath.

  “Next, where does he play golf and is he a member of the Allingham Golf Club?”

  Sutton shrugged again and Warren added a new line to the questions sheet.

  “Now we start to look at motive.”

  Sutton still looked sceptical, but Warren could see that as always he was unable to resist the intellectual challenge. “If Grayson and Sheehy were involved in the original conspiracy, then when Delmarno started to make noises about tracking down the people that stitched him up, Gavin could have got scared and gone to Grayson.”

  “Who could have decided that Sheehy needed silencing and attention deflected away from him,” finished Warren.

  Sutton contemplated it for a few moments, before shaking his head slowly. “I’m not convinced. If he was the person in charge of the conspiracy, why would he frame Gavin? Why not kill him? Every day that Gavin was alive he could have spilled the beans on Grayson’s involvement. He could even have used it as a bargaining chip with Delmarno—if Gavin is to be believed, he and your father were just foot soldiers. If Grayson was behind the conspiracy, then surely he was the bigger prize? Why not trade Grayson’s name for protection?”

  “Hell of a gamble. He probably didn’t know for sure if he was even in Delmarno’s sights. The last thing he’d want to do is draw attention to himself unnecessarily. And would you trust the word of a character like Vinny Delmarno?”

  Sutton conceded the point with a nod.

  Warren continued, “Perhaps he then went to Grayson and tried to convince him that they needed to do something?”

  “But why would Grayson have turned on Gavin?”

  “Maybe he threatened him? Do something about this Delmarno character or I’ll do something about it myself.” Said out loud, it sounded even weaker, and Sutton pounced.

  “So again, why stitch up Gavin? Why not kill him? Or even better, why not do something about Delmarno? Bringing in Professional Standards is madness, surely? Those bastards are like a terrier with a freshly caught rat.”

  Warren scowled in frustration.

  The two men lapsed back into silence.

  “And another thing,” started Sutton, “if he was going to all of that trouble and placing himself in so much danger, you’d have thought Grayson would have benefitted from Delmarno’s conviction.”

  “And you don’t think he did?”

  Sutton shrugged. “I guess if he was on the serious crime squad he could have.” He grimaced. “If he did get a promotion out of it, he didn’t exactly capitalise on it. He was a DCI for decades as I understand it. He only got superintendent rank a few years back.”

  “And how long do you think he’s got until retirement?”

  Sutton joined the dots. “Just a few years. And it’ll be a big hike in pension for him if he retires as a chief superintendent.”

  “Taking over and ‘cleaning up’ Middlesbury CID would certainly help him next time he goes up for promotion.”

  The two men mulled the theory over in silence, before Sutton restarted, doubt still in his voice. “It’s a pretty big set of coincidences. And it suggests that he is behind at least three other murders: Reggie Williamson, Anton Liebig and Zachary Eddleston.”

  Warren’s voice was now less certain. Nevertheless he persevered, extending the fingers on his right hand. “Let’s look at them one at a time: first, Reggie Williamson. Leave aside the trained killer theory; Bob’s right, he could just have gotten lucky. Grayson’s an experienced detective. He’d know how to dispose of evidence. What was he doing Thursday night?”

  Sutton thought back. “No idea. I wasn’t on duty. We’ll have to check the shift logs. See if we can account for his whereabouts.”

  Warren moved to the second finger. “Anton Liebig. And we can probably do Zachary Eddleston at the same time.” Sutton reluctantly nodded his agreement. “Eddleston reckons that the guy who bribed him was average height
or slightly smaller, late middle-age with grey hair.”

  “Well that describes Grayson, but it’s hardly conclusive.” Sutton crossed his arms.

  Warren hissed in frustration. “If we’d brought Eddleston in to do an eFit, he’d probably have walked right past Grayson’s office. That would have cleared things up mighty quick.” His face darkened. “If only we’d brought him in that evening, instead of sending him home.”

  Sutton raised a hand to forestall his boss’s self-recrimination bubbling to the surface again. “You can’t know that. Besides it was late evening. Grayson had probably buggered off hours ago.”

  Warren managed a faint smile of thanks, before turning to his laptop. “Let’s see if we can at least answer a few of these questions.”

  The first thing he did was call up the shift-management program. “Reggie Williamson died on Thursday night. Presumably Grayson would have needed at least a couple of hours either side to prepare, then to clean himself up afterwards.”

  “He was on shift earlier in the day, but went off duty at six,” observed Sutton coming around the desk.

  “And you don’t recall if he was in the office for the late shift?”

  Sutton shook his head, looking slightly embarrassed. “I was catching up on paperwork with my headphones on. He could have walked right past me and I’d never have noticed.”

  “OK, what about the thirtieth of December, the night Liebig was killed? I know he wasn’t on leave, not with those murders going on.” The new-year period had been a busy time for the unit. Warren keyed in the appropriate date. “He finished shift at six. Again, plenty of time to go home and get ready.”

  “OK, Zachary Eddleston, Monday the second.”

  “Off shift again. It’s hardly conclusive. Grayson’s a nine-to-six man most of the time.” Warren shook his head.