BURIED CRIMES: a gripping detective thriller full of twists and turns

by MICHAEL HAMBLING

  ‘Oh, I think so,’ he replied. ‘But remember, I’m no expert. I’m not a therapist or counsellor, so I can’t say whether what you’re seeking is going to be constructive or not.’

  ‘I don’t expect that from you. I’ve had enough therapy over the past year, believe me. But I want to know whether it showed, when I was small, what I was feeling inside about my father. Did it?’

  ‘I don’t think so. What I remember was a happy little girl of outstanding intelligence and insight. I was a little in awe of you, you know.’

  Sophie laughed. ‘Be serious.’

  ‘I am being serious. I felt that you could have been anything you put your mind to: a surgeon or a top research scientist, or an academic of some kind. It doesn’t surprise me that you ended up studying for a law degree at one of the world’s top universities. But then it also doesn’t surprise me that you’ve ended up as a senior detective. In some ways I’m happier with that than if you’d had a career as a city property lawyer or a financial tycoon. It’s reassuring to know that you have such a socially worthwhile career. I can see how it fits.’

  ‘I might still have a career in academia. I have an open invitation to complete a doctorate in criminal psychology in London where I did my masters, so that’s what I plan to do when I’ve had enough of this job. I still keep in touch with my Oxford college, and we have an unofficial agreement about a role for me once I’ve got the necessary qualifications.’

  His turn to laugh. ‘Ah, the old boys’ network.’

  ‘Exactly. Rumours, handshakes and chocolate biscuits.’ She took one from the plate and bit into it. ‘This one’s good. The thing is, I’ve realised that it’s probably all false. It was all calculated and planned. I’m not the same person now, not since I discovered the truth about my dad. What I really want to do is go back in time, remove all of that misplaced hatred from my soul and replace it with admiration and love, because he was obviously such a good person. But how can I do that?’

  ‘You can try to do that now, surely, in the present? Learn to love him?’

  ‘No!’ She almost snapped. ‘I can’t. It’s easy to hate someone you’ve never met if you believe they’ve done you wrong. But you can’t love someone you’ve never met. All you’re doing is pretending to love a mental construction. It’s false. Though God knows I’ve tried. I’ve read his diaries and his poems, I’ve held his toys from when he was a boy. I’ve listened to his favourite music. I’ve tried to decipher the doodles in the margins of his lecture notes. But I get nothing except a sense of desolation. I can’t get over the waste of it all.’

  George said nothing.

  ‘I was in a pit six months ago. Do you know how low I’d sunk? I was at a conference in London and allowed myself to be chatted up in the bar by one of the other delegates, a lecturer from Manchester. I decided, in a moment of madness, to go back to his room because he was staying overnight. We got as far as the lift. The doors closed and I looked at my reflection in the mirror. What was I doing, for God’s sake? This was me, Sophie. I punched the button for the ground floor but we were already on the way up. I said to him, "no, this is all wrong." He got a bit angry. He put his arm around me, but too tightly so I hit him, quite hard. He was gasping for breath when the doors opened on one of the upper floors, so I got out and took the stairs down to reception. I walked out of that hotel, promising myself that I wouldn’t let myself stoop so low again. And I haven’t. But it scares me. I’m frightened to death of myself, and no one knows. I didn’t even tell my therapist.’

  ‘But you’ve told me?’

  She nodded. ‘Now I’ve told someone, I expect the tension of that episode will fade.’ She finished her coffee. ‘The thing is, how are the others coping? I’m not the only person who’ll have been deeply affected by the truth about my dad’s death.’

  ‘How did your mother take it?’

  ‘She cries. She pretends to be cheerful and upbeat, but I catch her sometimes, sobbing quietly to herself. It’s such a waste. All because my dad was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he bumped into an evil bastard who was too trigger-happy. I looked into his eyes, you know, when we caught up with him. I thought I might see evil, but all I could see was desolate emptiness.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. Is there anything I can say?’

  ‘Of course not. But you’ve listened to my rant, and that’s helped. And you know why I’m telling you this, don’t you? Even though I hadn’t planned it.’

  He nodded. ‘I was a substitute father figure for you? For that year?’

  She nodded. ‘I always knew I could come and find you, even though I moved into a different class the next year. The day I left to start secondary school you came to find me and told me that I could pop back and see you if I needed to. I never did, and I feel a bit guilty about it.’

  ‘There’s no need. And you’ve done it now. In a way I feel privileged that it’s me you’ve chosen.’

  ‘And I haven’t asked about your life. Are you still married, or do you live here alone?’

  He sighed. ‘Alone. My wife walked out on me a couple of years ago. She went on holiday with one if her girlfriends, had an affair with a man while she was away and decided that I didn’t match up. It happened just after I retired and we’d moved here.’

  ‘I’m truly sorry to hear that. You must have been devastated.’

  ‘It shook me, it really did. Maybe I took her too much for granted, but she did that with me. I was away on a singles cruise last week and that’s why I missed all the news reports about the children’s bodies. I had a bit of a romance while I was away, but it wasn’t serious. I couldn’t get Marie out of my head. Someone told me she’s going through a bad time, so I’ve messaged her to suggest we try to patch up our differences. I haven’t heard back yet.’

  ‘I hope it works out for you. I always think of you as such a considerate person. Children? Grandchildren?’

  ‘Yes. One lot are quite local, they’re in Salisbury, which is why we chose to retire here. That and the fact that Marie grew up here and always wanted to return. I think she’s in Brighton at the moment. She’s in contact with the children but they’re not particularly happy with what she did.’

  Sophie reached over and patted his hand. ‘I’m glad you’re giving her the option of another chance. I hope that Martin would do the same with me if I did something totally barmy because of my mental state.’

  ‘Life. It can be a mess, can’t it?’ There was a silence. ‘Maybe we should talk about the real reason you’re here. The surname was Camberwell. I remembered before Rae phoned. Another coffee?’

  Chapter 18: Hit and Run

  Tuesday afternoon, week 2

  ‘Your mother was mostly right, ma’am.’ Barry Marsh was speaking to the detectives sitting around the central table in the incident room. ‘She was a GP in Bristol. Li Hua Camberwell was thirty-six years old when she died. But it wasn’t a straightforward RTA. It was a hit and run, and the culprit was never found. I’m still waiting for some of the details to arrive, but the bare facts are these. She died on the night of October the third, 1990, in the evening. She’d finished a round of house calls and she must have been crossing the road to get back to her car. It was parked a few hundred yards away from her last visit.’

  ‘Wasn’t it a bit odd, parking so far away?’ Rae asked.

  ‘Not in this case. She had two house calls close to each other and had parked outside the first. It looks as though she’d decided to walk to the second one rather than move her car. It’s quite understandable. According to the coroner’s report the impact of the collision suggests that the car was moving very fast, even though it was a built-up area.’

  Sophie was watching Barry carefully. ‘And?’

  ‘She had two young children. No other details about them at present. So it looks as though you were right, ma’am. We have the breakthrough we were looking for.’

  ‘And George Bramshaw has confirmed that the two children at his school for the
1995 spring term had the surname Camberwell. They were twins, Jasmine and Kenneth. There appears to be no record of them after they left. They vanished without trace, it seems. Well, we know why. They too died, four or five years after their mother. We need everything they have on that death, Barry. Can you visit tomorrow and collect it all?’

  ‘Of course. But there’s something else, ma’am. There was another Doctor Camberwell practising in Bristol at the same time. He was in one of the local hospitals, in orthopaedics. It could be a coincidence, but how likely is that?’

  Sophie looked at her watch and did some calculations. ‘Okay, we’ll both go to Bristol and we’ll do it now. You concentrate on the wife’s death and I’ll go to the hospital.’ She looked around at the rest of the team. ‘Unless anyone has anything important to add, we’ll suspend the meeting right now and reconvene tomorrow morning first thing.’ No one spoke, so Sophie stood up. ‘Rae, do me a favour. Find out what you can about this second Doctor Camberwell. We assume he was related, but I don’t want to end up trekking all the way to Bristol on a false premise. Be as quick as you can. I’ll be ready to leave in about fifteen minutes.’

  Rae soon found enough information to convince Sophie that she needed to visit the hospital.

  The road to Bristol was surprisingly empty. Sophie dropped Marsh at police headquarters, and drove on to the infirmary. It didn’t take her long to find the administration block and someone who could help her to trace records for a Doctor Camberwell. It was wonderful what a police warrant card could do. She was even brought coffee, just as foul-tasting as the liquid the police station supplied.

  Richard Camberwell, as Rae’s research had indicated, had been a specialist registrar in orthopaedic surgery. The records showed that he’d worked at the hospital from 1988 until 1994.

  ‘Why did he leave?’ Sophie asked. ‘Do the records give the reason? A transfer to another hospital?’

  Colin Peterson, the personnel officer, said, ‘this record doesn’t say, but I can check it another way. Just give me a moment.’ He searched through the database. ‘The problem is, it was such a long time ago. Data Protection regulations are fairly strict about how long we can hang on to personal data. Don’t keep your hopes up.’

  Sophie nodded. The year Camberwell had finished his spell at the hospital corresponded closely with the time when the two children were probably buried. It also fitted with the date that George Bramshaw had given her for when they started at his primary school — January 1995. Peterson could find nothing else in the records. Sophie would have to try and trace people who might remember the doctor. She asked him if he could identify anyone who had been employed at the hospital for twenty years or more and who might have had contact with Camberwell. This time the database yielded two names, a nurse and a sister.

  ‘I’ll go and get them,’ he volunteered. ‘I’d rather not have you wandering about the place trying to pin down people who might be anywhere. Give me a few minutes.’

  He disappeared into an inner office, emerging several minutes later with a look of triumph on his face. ‘Fortune favours the godly. They’re both in this afternoon. I messaged them, and they can both give us a couple of minutes in a short while. Have another coffee while you wait?’

  Sophie smiled weakly and shook her head. ‘No thanks. I’m being careful of what’s left of my stomach lining. Water would be good, though.’

  Looking puzzled, he fetched a tumbler of water from yet another dispenser. What’s wrong with good old tap water? Sophie wondered.

  The two nurses arrived together, chatting.

  ‘Why do you want to know about Richard Camberwell?’ asked the sister.

  ‘I can’t tell you at the moment. It’s to do with an ongoing investigation into a serious crime.’ Sophie showed them her warrant card. ‘I’d like to know where he went to from here, why, and where I might find him now. I’d appreciate anything you can tell me.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell,’ replied the sister. ‘He didn’t go anywhere after here. He died in 1994.’

  ‘What? How did it happen?’

  ‘He tripped and fell down the stairs at home. Apparently he had severe head injuries that caused brain damage. He never regained consciousness and died the next day.’

  ‘Did he have a family? What happened to them?’

  ‘He left a widow and two children, as far as I remember. I’m afraid I don’t know anything more about that side of things. She’d have been well looked after. There would have been a death in service lump sum, plus any life insurance that he’d taken out.’

  ‘Do you know anything about the children? Could they have been twins?’

  The sister shook her head. Her colleague said, ‘I think they were a boy and a girl, but that’s all I know. I seem to remember that he didn’t talk about his family much, particularly to junior staff. He was a very thoughtful man, but kind of distant. We were both new here. I started about a year or so before he died. Weren’t you the same, Bronwen?’

  The sister nodded. ‘Kept himself to himself. I never thought he looked particularly happy. Maybe it was just his nature.’

  Sophie thanked them. ‘If there’s anything else you remember or if you think of someone who might be able to remember more, please phone me.’ She handed over her card.

  Bronwen, the sister, looked at the card. ‘Dorset. And you’re a DCI. Is it those kiddies’ bodies in the garden? Don’t tell me they were Richard’s?’ She put a hand up to her mouth.

  ‘I can’t comment, sorry. I’d like you to keep this meeting to yourselves, please. Any information that leaks out could put my investigation at risk.’

  The two nurses nodded. They both looked shocked.

  So, how does this alter things? Sophie wondered, as she drove into the car park at Bristol’s city police headquarters. Could it be true that the whole family had died within a few years of each other? First, Li Hua, the GP and possible mother of the twins. She’d died in the autumn of 1990, apparently in a hit and run incident. If the nurses’ recollections were correct, Richard died some four years later in 1994. Lastly the two children — if the bodies found buried at Finch Cottage were indeed the Camberwell twins. They had perished sometime in the spring of 1995. She’d have to wait to see what Barry had discovered, but it was beginning to look as if the case might be vastly more complex than any of them had imagined. The other interesting fact was that the sister was sure that Richard had left a widow. Had he married again after Li Hua’s death?

  Sophie slid out of her car and made her way to the staff entrance.

  Chapter 19: Infrequently Washed Knickers

  Tuesday evening, week 2

  Hannah Allen dropped her phone into her bag and walked through to her bedroom. She shared a flat with two other students. She had been in the only communal room, the kitchen, when the call from Pauline Stopley had come in. The former actress had explained that she’d been at an Arts Council meeting in the capital. It had finished early, her evening date had fallen through and so she had a free evening in London. Would Hannah like to meet her for a light meal and a few drinks? Hannah was excited and surprised by the invitation. It would be really useful to pick the brains of someone who’d done the rounds as a busy, working actress almost two decades ago. Pauline must have built up a wealth of experience and hearing her stories would be very useful to Hannah. Even if Pauline wasn’t keen to talk about her past, Hannah would still gain something. She loved meeting people who had anything to do with the theatre, even carpenters or set designers. But she was puzzled. Had she really made such an impression on this woman?

  Hannah rifled through the somewhat sparse contents of her wardrobe, finally settling on a pale blue dress decorated with small flowers in peach. A recent birthday present from her grandmother, it was simple but pretty. Ideal with those new peach suede shoes. Hannah went to the mirror. Maybe a hint of pink eye shadow? A little liner and mascara, a light touch of blusher and there she was, ready for an evening out. She slipped into her coat, pi
cked up her bag and made for the door.

  * * *

  The Turkish restaurant in Bloomsbury was one of Hannah’s favourites and she knew the staff well.

  The manager looked concerned when she entered. ‘You are not here with your young man. Should I be worried? Is it someone new you are meeting?’

  ‘No, no. I’m meeting someone who used to be a famous actress,’ Hannah replied. ‘But don’t say anything.’

  She was shown to one of the better tables, close to an ornate shelf bearing vases of colourful flowers. She sat facing the door, looking out at the people streaming by outside. There were students, tourists and workers, alone or in groups, all on their way to an evening out somewhere. And there she was, Pauline Stopley. She stood out in the crowd even in this failing light. Hannah watched her stride towards the door, smile at the manager, then whisper to him as he took her coat. Hannah stood up ready to shake hands as she reached the table, but Pauline reached across and gave Hannah a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘You look lovely,’ she said. ‘That’s a pretty dress.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Hannah realised she was blushing slightly. ‘You found the place alright? I was worried that my directions wouldn’t be clear.’

  Pauline smiled as she sat down. ‘Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, Russell Square. This used to be one of my old stamping grounds. I couldn’t get lost in this area. Now, let’s choose some food and drink and then we can chat. This is my treat by the way. No arguments.’

  She waved a finger. Very theatrical, thought Hannah. She wondered whether to comment on Pauline’s dress, a beautifully cut, plain black shift, but thought better of it. They studied the menu, Pauline chose the wine, and the two women settled into a couple of hours of very pleasant chat about the ins and outs of an acting career. It was more than two hours later that they finished their coffees and Pauline paid the bill.

  ‘Shall we go to a pub?’ she asked. ‘It’s still early. My return ticket for Dorchester is tomorrow morning, so I’m in a hotel for the night and I’d just get bored going back this early. You must know some good bars near here if you’re a regular. What about it?’