Silent as the Grave

by Paul Gitsham

  Famous Grouse. Warren took a deep breath as, unbidden, the image of the bottle with its distinctive logo, rolling out of his father’s lap and onto the garage floor sprang to mind. To this day, he still felt uncomfortable at the blanket advertising of the spirit during the run-up to Christmas.

  After determining that there was nothing of interest buried amongst the bills and legal documents sitting on the coffee table, he moved onto the kitchen. Open-plan and clearly an extension, the centrepiece of the room was a large breakfast bar with enough room to seat four people. Three tall stools sat around the table. The fourth was lying on its side in the hallway below the noose.

  Warren measured the height of the stool by eye and mentally added Sheehy’s height. Looking at the position of the crude noose hanging from the upstairs banisters he could see that the drop was nowhere near sufficient for a hangman’s fracture. Assuming that the pressure on the carotid arteries didn’t lead to unconsciousness in a few seconds, death, if it came, would be by slow strangulation, taking several minutes.

  How long had Sheehy been hanging there desperately trying to support his weight on the overturned stool before Tony had spotted him through the letter box? He’d been limp by the time they’d smashed the door open, his face a grotesque purplish-red mask, the noose biting deeply into his throat.

  Warren shuddered, then pushed the thought to one side, moving back into the kitchen. The room was untidy and smelt of stale food, the dishwasher loaded with several days’ worth of dirty crockery, a multitude of different stains attesting to the broad variety of different food colourings used by the local takeaways. Lifting the lid of the overflowing bin, Warren found nothing of interest underneath the foil food containers and ready-meal packaging.

  Off to the side of the kitchen was a small utility room housing a washer-dryer, a chest freezer and a plastic crate filled with empty beer cans and yet more whisky bottles. Still nothing of interest and Warren was starting to wonder if there was anything to be found in the house. Had Sheehy still got the information that Warren was convinced he’d taken from the archive? If he didn’t have it, where was it?

  Exactly why Warren suddenly felt the need to open the laundry hamper he didn’t know. But the double bin bag containing a blood-covered shirt and trousers wrapped around a kitchen knife and dismantled mobile phone suddenly changed everything.

  * * *

  “Reggie Williamson.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Forensics will need to confirm, but it looks that way, sir.”

  Grayson breathed out heavily. He was still dressed in an expensive shirt and trousers. Sheehy’s suicide bid wasn’t enough to get him to leave his club, but the suggestion that the suspended DCI might be responsible for a murder certainly was. Warren caught the faint whiff of red wine and wondered if Grayson had driven himself over or caught a taxi. Now might be a good time to find out where the man played golf, but before he could formulate an innocuous-enough question, Grayson spoke again.

  “Does Tony know yet?”

  “He’s on his way back from the hospital. I told him to stop by before he goes to see Judith.”

  “Any thoughts yet? Could this be why he tried to kill himself?”

  “It looks that way.”

  Grayson stared at him hard for a few seconds. He’d clearly heard the uncertainty in Warren’s voice.

  “Find out,” was all he said. Warren nodded. It was all he could do. The adrenaline from finding Sheehy then discovering the murder weapon in the hamper had worn off to be replaced by a bone-deep weariness.

  Pulling himself to his feet he headed out the door. First stop the coffee urn, he decided.

  * * *

  Sheehy was in a medically induced coma, Sutton had informed him. There was no telling how long his brain had been starved of oxygen or the long-term effects. He would almost certainly survive, but whether he would ever wake up was in the hands of God and medical science.

  Sutton had been impatient to get on the road to Colchester to break the news to Judith Sheehy, insisting that he did it himself rather than family liaison. It had been an emotionally trying night for the man already and Warren had hated adding to his burden.

  “I can’t believe it. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What other explanation is there, Tony? I saw it myself. The forensics are just a formality.”

  Sutton was pacing around Warren’s office, a tightly coiled ball of fury. “No, it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know it’s hard to believe…”

  “No, I mean it doesn’t make any sense. Why would he kill Reggie Williamson? What would his motive be?”

  “To silence him maybe? Williamson was the one who stole the gun from Delmarno; if he could finger Sheehy for the planting of evidence then Sheehy’s going down for a long time. Not to mention what would happen if Delmarno found out. What if Reggie Williamson was blackmailing Sheehy?”

  “So why would Gavin come to you and confess to planting the evidence in Delmarno’s original conviction? He’s not stupid; he knows we had to be recording everything he said.”

  Warren got to his feet. Sutton’s pacing was infectious. He counted the points off on his fingers.

  “First, you’re right he’s not stupid. He took steps to ensure that we couldn’t record him. And even if I had managed to smuggle a wire out there, he knows that any recording we made would be useless in court. Second, he was trying to pin the blame on Delmarno for Williamson’s death. If he kills Williamson and successfully gets Delmarno sent back to prison he’s killed two birds with one stone. He knows we won’t do anything about his confession. Who gives a toss? Delmarno’s been convicted of murder when on licence, nobody’s going to open an investigation into an alleged miscarriage of justice from way back in the eighties.”

  “So why was he hiding the murder weapon in his sodding laundry hamper? A bit difficult to explain if Judith decides to come home unexpectedly. Why not just get rid of it? He’s a bloody detective. He knows all the tricks in the book when it comes to getting rid of evidence.”

  “Presumably he was waiting for an opportunity to plant it on Delmarno to secure his conviction. It’s not like he hasn’t done it before.”

  Sutton was silent for a few seconds, digesting. “So why try and kill himself?”

  Warren couldn’t answer. He admitted as much.

  “Chief, there’s more to this than meets the eye. Don’t go for the easy explanation. Dig deeper.”

  Warren nodded, too tired to take umbrage at the suggestion that he might not fully investigate.

  “And you, Tony. Don’t make this personal. Gavin Sheehy might not be the man you thought you knew.” Warren was acutely aware of how hypocritical he sounded. This case was as personal to him as it could be.

  Sutton looked away, before nodding. “I have to go and see Judith,” he mumbled grabbing his coat and draining his coffee. Warren groaned and looked at the clock. Two a.m. Grabbing his empty mug, he headed back to the urn.

  Tuesday 10 April

  Chapter 34

  “So let’s go over what we have so far.”

  Tony Sutton looked as tired as Warren felt. The two men sat across from each other in the corner of an out-of-the-way greasy spoon that Sutton had recommended. It was seven a.m. and neither man had enjoyed more than a couple of hours’ sleep since the previous night. The full English breakfast weighed heavy in Warren’s stomach, not helped by the three cups of coffee that he’d consumed already.

  The two men’s recap was less about what they knew, rather what they wanted to reveal to the rest of the team in an hour’s time.

  “Zachary Eddleston was murdered.”

  It was a statement more than a question, but Warren answered positively.

  “And you think Gavin did it?”

  This time Warren was less sure and he admitted as much. “Forensics have linked the knife and bloodstained hoody that I found in the laundry basket to Reggie Williamson’s murder. They’ve also found a bla
ck jumper that matches the fibres left at Eddleston’s flat.”

  “The knife is pretty damning, I’ll give you that, but the fibres are weak. The jumper is pretty generic. Gavin didn’t do brands. He was completely indifferent to fashion.” Sutton was still badly conflicted over his former friend and mentor. Warren noticed that he was starting to refer to him in the past tense, even though the man was still alive in hospital.

  “Well we’ve already got good motives for why he may have killed Reggie Williamson, so leaving aside Zachary Eddleston, my next question is: where does the bribery charge fit in?”

  “Coincidence? He was dirty and got caught. Maybe that’s what spurred Reggie Williamson to threaten him. Allegations that he planted evidence in the eighties is hardly going to help his case is it? The jury will lap that up and the judge will throw the book at him.”

  Warren shook his head. “How would they know? There’s no way the judge would let the prosecution admit it as evidence and it would be little more that hearsay.”

  Sutton shrugged, undeterred. “So they bring a separate case. It still isn’t good for him.” He speared a stray fried mushroom with his fork.

  Warren pondered it for a minute. “If we take it to its logical conclusion, then Sheehy was responsible for Anton Liebig’s car crash. Zachary Eddleston was a loose end remaining from that investigation. When we turned up, he figured that it was time to get rid of him, but he didn’t want to raise suspicion.”

  “Well that makes even less sense. Gavin highlighted that Liebig’s death was suspicious. Until we started sniffing around that was all tied up neatly as a drink-driving accident and he’s a copper; he knows we aren’t going to accept Eddleston’s accident as a tragic coincidence without a full investigation.”

  “Maybe it’s all an elaborate ruse to frame Delmarno? I imagine that his being released from prison really screwed things up. It looks as though everyone expected him to die in there. Get rid of him and all of this goes away again.”

  Sutton disagreed. “That doesn’t really add up. A few fibres from a ten-a-penny jumper is pretty flimsy. And why go to all the trouble of making it look as though his death was an accident if he wanted us to assume that Delmarno killed him?”

  “Well the accident didn’t stand up to serious scrutiny. Maybe he was just being clever, pulling some sort of double bluff. We see the accident was actually a murder, so we look a bit harder and find a few fibres—then hey presto we suddenly find the jumper in the back of Vinny Delmarno’s car or he’s wearing it when he gets arrested for some random offence.”

  Sutton shook his head. “Bloody hell, Boss. Do you think Gavin is that reckless? That whole premise rests on us matching a few fibres. Surely he could have come up with a more obvious link between Delmarno and the murder victims? Plus, it doesn’t seem consistent. On the one hand he goes to all this trouble to stage murders and accidents to frame Delmarno, then he’s quite happy to just stick a carving knife between Reggie Williamson’s ribs?”

  “I agree. It doesn’t seem sensible. But let’s assume for the moment that Sheehy was responsible, was he working alone? Was he the one who approached Eddleston and asked him to spike Liebig’s drink?”

  “That’s a tricky one, all right. How would he have gained access to Eddleston? Surely he isn’t a member of the same golf club as Liebig? That’d be a hell of a coincidence. Besides, wouldn’t he be recognised by Delmarno?”

  Warren rocked a hand side to side. “Maybe, maybe not. Delmarno may never have clapped eyes on him. Anyway, Eddleston said he was approached near the kitchens, that’s probably away from where the guests were. Plus, the place was crawling with temporary staff. How difficult would it have been for a respectable-looking man in a suit to corner one of the waiting staff as he walked past? You know how it works, act like you own the place and a tired, busy, young lad with the promise of easy money isn’t going to ask too many questions.”

  Sutton conceded the point. “And he could have been in disguise. A beard hides a lot of features.”

  “True. Although it’s pretty strange that Eddleston didn’t mention the beard. He said that the man who approached him was grey-haired, middle-aged and average build. His description was about as much use as Obsanjo’s. Unless he recognised a photo of Sheehy down the station, he probably wasn’t going to be much help. But if the man who approached him had a beard, you’d think he’d mention it.”

  “I guess we need to find out when Gavin grew his furry food-catcher, although it seems a bit daft that he would go to the trouble of disguising himself with a beard and then grow one in real life.”

  Warren blinked.

  “Say that again, Tony,” he said slowly.

  “We need to find out when Gavin grew that scruffy beard of his. I was pretty shocked when I saw the state of him. He used to be quite fussy about his appearance.”

  “You mean he didn’t used to have a beard?”

  “No, he was always clean-shaven when we worked together.”

  The jolt of adrenaline that passed through Warren cut through the exhausted fog far more effectively that any amount of caffeine ever could. “Sheehy wasn’t Obsanjo’s contact.” It was as if the voice wasn’t Warren’s.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember I said that Obsanjo suddenly remembered more details about his contact’s appearance.”

  “Yeah, you said that he could have been describing Gavin.”

  Warren shook his head. “I got it wrong. He could have been describing his appearance now. He said that he was a middle-aged white man with a beard. Sheehy didn’t have a beard when he was supposed to have been passing information.”

  Sutton looked stunned. “Gavin was telling the truth.” He paused. “So what does that mean? That Obsanjo’s contact was somebody else?”

  “Or there was no contact and Obsanjo was shown a photograph of Sheehy and told to describe him to Professional Standards when asked.”

  Sutton was visibly shaken. “He could have mistaken you for one of them when you visited.” He shook his head. “We’ve got to confront him. Let him know the game is up. If he is doing somebody’s bidding we need to know who.”

  The two men lapsed into silence, both lost in their own thoughts.

  “I’m going to have to go back in again. There’s no other way.”

  “Shit.”

  Warren agreed with the other man’s sentiment. Going back into the prison without the permission of Professional Standards was going to put him squarely in their sights again. They’d be furious. Warren’s interference could destroy their case against Sheehy.

  “You should go to Standards and tell them what you know.”

  Warren shook his head. “Even if they listen to me—and why would they?—how do we know they aren’t involved? This whole thing runs too deep. Somebody wanted Sheehy framed and that someone has serious clout. They’ve probably been involved in this for almost a quarter-of-a-century—they could be running Professional Standards by now, for all we know. Until we can be sure who to trust, this needs to be kept as quiet as possible.”

  And if he was wrong, by this time next week Warren might no longer be investigating anything.

  Chapter 35

  “Jones, my office, now.”

  Grayson was furious. Without waiting to see if Warren had heard him—although he’d have had to have been half deaf to miss the bellow—he stalked into his office, leaving the door open.

  Warren felt a hard knot form in the pit of his stomach. He could only think of one reason the superintendent would be so angry. The dozen or so steps from the room where the team had been assembling for the morning briefing seemed to take for ever; for their part, the team suddenly seemed inordinately busy, their gazes firmly fixed on whatever they had in front of them. By the time he reached the threshold of Grayson’s office, Warren’s ears were burning red hot. As he closed the door behind him, he fancied he could feel the change in air pressure as the rest of the team exhaled as one.

  “I’ve j
ust been speaking to a DCI Lowry, from Professional Standards. He is going absolutely batshit and I can’t say I blame him. Would you care to explain what the fuck you think you were doing tricking your way into the Mount Prison to have a chat with a witness in their investigation?”

  Warren took a deep breath. Even to him, his excuses sounded poor. And he still couldn’t be sure if he trusted the man standing in front of him.

  “Billy Obsanjo is the person that Gavin Sheehy is alleged to have passed operational details onto in exchange for money. Sheehy claimed to know more details about the murder of Reggie Williamson and wanted me to investigate his case further in exchange for giving assistance.”

  Grayson looked as if he was going to have a stroke. “Are you taking the piss?” he managed to splutter. “Since when have we taken it upon ourselves to muscle in on another division’s investigation without so much as a courtesy call? And a Professional Standards investigation at that!”

  Warren opened his mouth to defend himself, but Grayson wasn’t finished.

  “And since when have we traded favours with bent coppers for information?”

  Warren thought it best not to point out that Sheehy hadn’t been convicted of any crime yet.

  “If Gavin Sheehy knew something about Reggie Williamson’s death—and I still think he’s full of shit—then you should have hauled his fat arse down here and demanded he help us or face more charges for conspiracy and perverting the course of justice.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Warren kept his gaze averted. He knew that he was skating on thin ice and if he wanted nothing more than a bollocking and a black mark on his record, he’d better keep his mouth shut.

  Grayson stalked around his desk and dropped into his chair with so much force it almost toppled backward. “When I told you to pursue any leads that Sheehy offered, I did not mean for you to go into the Mount Prison, impersonate a member of Professional Standards, trample on their investigation and scupper their prosecution.”

  Warren started to defend himself, “I never…”