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

by MICHAEL HAMBLING

  They ordered and Pauline almost gulped her gin and tonic.

  ‘What’s FGM?’ John asked.

  ‘It stands for female genital mutilation. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it. It’s been in the news quite a lot in recent years. Some cultures, mainly from Africa, practise female circumcision. It’s a form of control, leaving the girl unable to enjoy sex. Her clitoris is cut out before she reaches puberty. There’s nothing to gain from the practice and everything to lose, according to Hannah — she’s the young woman I met. She called it totally barbaric. Many women are left mutilated and in pain for the rest of their lives. I met Hannah for the first time here in Dorchester, on Sunday. She was chairing a talk at the Arts Centre and we chatted over a cup of tea afterwards. That’s when she found out who I was. I had a free evening yesterday so I contacted her to see if she was able to meet me.’

  John looked a little puzzled. ‘You said you were meeting someone on Sunday afternoon, so I thought you had another date. You meant the talk? You were just teasing me, weren’t you?’

  Pauline smiled mischievously. ‘I went with my sister. But I did have lunch first, and that’s all I’m prepared to say.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I did enjoy our time together at the weekend, John. I sometimes worry that I’m too pushy when it comes to the physical side of things, but it isn’t forced. It seems natural for me to take the lead. I guess you’ll just have to accept it.’

  He smiled. ‘It’s not a problem. It was all new to me and I loved it.’ He raised his beer and they touched glasses. ‘Here’s to us,’ he said. ‘Do you want to come back to mine again tonight?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry, John. I really can’t make it tonight. But how about you coming to my place on Friday evening? I do a great pasta if you don’t mind eating Italian again.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll look forward to it. I’ll bring the wine.’

  She leaned towards him and whispered, ‘I’ve thought of one or two new things to try out. Wear your silk pants again. Okay?’

  The young couple at the next table stared at them, wide-eyed. John was embarrassed, but Pauline smiled sweetly at them and winked.

  Chapter 22: Dreadful Death

  Thursday morning, week 2

  ‘What’s going on?’ Sophie arrived at the incident room after a meeting with Jim Metcalfe and Neil Dunnett. The latter had been sullen and uncommunicative. Thank heavens for her good relationship with the ACC.

  ‘It might turn out to involve us, ma’am.’ Marsh held out some sheets of paper. ‘An apparent suicide this morning, here in Dorchester. John Wethergill, owner of a local hardware shop. The cleaner found him dead in bed when she went in first thing this morning. It has all the signs of cyanide poisoning. The local uniforms were there pretty quick and the call to us came in just now.’

  ‘Cyanide? Where in God’s name would he get that? Did you say hardware shop? Even so, it’s almost impossible to get hold of the stuff.’

  ‘He could have had it for years, ma’am.’

  ‘But why contact us?’

  ‘Apparently they found something showing that he’d been the gardener at Finch Cottage many years ago.’

  Sophie closed her eyes. How was this going to look to Dunnett? Checking for gardeners and odd job men was to be their next task. And now this. She gave Marsh a thin smile. ‘Dunnett is going to have a field day with this. Okay, let’s move. Get Rae, will you?’

  * * *

  Wethergill’s flat was in a building that had once been a warehouse. A uniformed officer waited for the detectives in the flat’s hallway. Another was sitting inside with the cleaner who had made the grim discovery. Sophie greeted the two constables and spoke quietly to the one at the door.

  ‘What did you find that made you call us?’ she asked.

  He pointed to a framed photo on a shelf in the narrow hall. It looked fairly old, slightly faded and out of focus. It showed a man in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing gardening clothes and leaning on a garden spade. Sophie recognised the garden immediately. She could see Finch Cottage in the background. She turned the photo over and read the inscription on the back: "To John Wethergill, Finch Cottage gardener, 1986 - 1996. Good luck with the new shop."

  Sophie nodded. She looked around her, waiting for Benny Goodall, who had pulled up outside just as the detectives were entering the building. The ceilings were high, with exposed beams in the kitchen and living room, but the bedrooms looked more modern. Not that the detectives had much desire to admire the decor in the main bedroom. The effects of cyanide poisoning were clearly evident.

  ‘Not much doubt, is there?’ Sophie said to the pathologist, who had finally caught up with them. The redness of the dead man’s face said it all, along with the trails of vomit spread on and around the bed, evidence of severe seizures. ‘He took it bad.’

  Wethergill’s body, still fully clothed, lay spread-eagled across the bed.

  Goodall wrinkled his nose. ‘Can you smell it? Almonds.’

  ‘Yes. Is there any way it could have been accidental, Benny? Is that at all possible?’

  ‘There’s always a chance, I suppose. But why would anyone keep the stuff? It’s so tightly controlled. If he did have some in the house, I suppose it could be taken accidentally, assuming it was potassium cyanide. It looks just like sugar. But realistically, how likely is that? Are there any hints of a motive for suicide?’

  She nodded. ‘Oh yes, most definitely. Once you get him out of here we’ll start looking for more clues. For your ears only, Benny, he could have been the gardener at Finch Cottage.’

  ‘Was the net closing in, then?’

  ‘Not really, although he wasn’t to know that. Anyway, it would have only been a matter of time. Rae has made a list of all the occupants and owners, so regular visitors and hired help would have been next. He would have guessed that. Time of death, Benny?’

  ‘I’d guess sometime in the early hours. He’s been dead about six or seven hours, so maybe between two and four this morning.’

  Sophie nodded and looked at the empty glass tumbler on the bedside table. A small jar of white crystals sat beside the glass with its lid off, a teaspoon beside it. The aged label simply stated "Potassium Cyanide." A half-full bottle of whisky stood behind it, also open.

  ‘We need to be careful with that stuff lying around,’ she said. ‘Whatever you do, Barry, don’t put your fingers near your lips and mouth just in case you’ve picked up some grains of it without realising. Once we’ve finished our brief look we close the door until the forensic squad arrive. Dave should be here within twenty minutes or so.’ She looked at Goodall. ‘Do the full works, Benny. Everything you can think of. I’d like to get as complete a picture as possible of everything he did last night, and your findings will help so much.’

  Marsh had been looking around the room. He picked up two framed photos lying face down on the nearby shelf. ‘Ma’am, you ought to see these.’

  He handed the first one to her. It was a picture of a young woman who looked Asian. The second showed two young children, a boy and a girl.

  Sophie waited while Benny finished his cursory examination and the forensic photographer had completed her work. She left the bedroom, took off her forensic suit and went into the lounge. Rae was sitting with a pale, middle-aged woman with shocking pink hair.

  ‘This is Sylvia McCabe, ma’am. She discovered the body soon after she got here this morning to do her weekly clean.’

  ‘Hello, Sylvia. Have you been working here long?’

  The woman nodded. ‘About five years.’

  ‘I’m the senior investigating officer on the case, and I’ll need to ask you a few questions. Are you well enough to answer them now, or would you prefer it if we spoke later on today?’

  There was a slight pause. ‘Um. Now would be okay.’

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Sophie Allen. Here’s my warrant card. Let’s start with some routine questions about your work for Mr Wethergill.’

  The cl
eaning lady called at the same time each Thursday morning to clean the apartment and do some of the laundry. John Wethergill had always washed and ironed his clothes, but had arranged with her to do the bed linen.

  ‘I don’t wash it here,’ she told them. ‘I use the laundry down the road. It’s quicker for drying the sheets and stuff.’

  ‘Have you noticed anything unusual in recent weeks, Sylvia? In Mr Wethergill’s behaviour? In the flat?’

  ‘Not really, though I don’t see him very much. He leaves me my money in an envelope on that shelf.’ She pointed towards a bookcase by the wall. There was no envelope.

  ‘Where is it today?’ Sophie asked.

  Sylvia patted her pocket. ‘It’s the first thing I do, find me money. There’s no point in doing me cleaning and then finding it’s not there, is there? That’s the agreement. Me money has to be ready for me.’

  ‘We’ll need that envelope, Sylvia. It will have to be fingerprinted. That means we’ll need your prints as well. No, don’t you take it out. Rae can do it with a pair of tweezers.’

  Sylvia watched. She looked anxious as the envelope containing her morning’s wages was carefully extracted from the pocket on the front of her housecoat. Rae then opened the top flap and peered inside.

  ‘Fifty pounds,’ she said, depositing the small package into a plastic bag.

  ‘S’right. When will I get it? I needs that money.’

  ‘You’ll get a receipt, Sylvia. If you’re really short I can lend you some.’

  The cleaner was quiet for a while. ‘No, I s’pose I can wait.’

  ‘Did you see anything else different today?’

  ‘Me name isn’t on the envelope. It always was before, but it’s blank today. Maybe he couldn’t find a pen, I dunno. And it’s in smaller notes than usual. It’s always two twenties and a ten. This morning it’s four tens and two fivers.’

  ‘There’s a framed photo in the bedroom of a woman. She looks Asian. Maybe Indian? Do you know anything about it?’

  ‘That’ll be his girlfriend as was. Maralit or something like that, I think. She’s not been around for a few weeks. He said she’d gone back to the Philippines or somewhere like that. That photo’s always been in here before, not the bedroom.’

  ‘And there’s another, two young children.’

  Sylvia shook her head. ‘Probably Maralit’s kids. I think they stayed back in the Philippines with their dad. He don’t usually keep it out, only when Maralit’s around and she’s been away for weeks.’

  ‘Can you walk round the flat with me, Sylvia? Just to see if anything else is out of its usual place. It won’t take long, and we won’t go in the bedroom. Then you can go. Okay?’

  * * *

  ‘So. Assuming the bodies were of the Camberwell children, have we been barking up the wrong tree?’ Sophie asked. ‘What if they were the two in this photo, somehow linked to Wethergill, who just happened to be the gardener at Finch Cottage at about the time they were buried? What if the mother is the woman in the other photo, Maralit or whoever, who’s conveniently returned to the Philippines sometime in the past month or two? What I’m asking is, are we back to square one?’

  Neither Barry nor Rae answered. They felt the same; despondent and angry with themselves. Sophie answered her own question. ‘Obviously we switch our attention to Wethergill at the moment. We need to give his place the full works, and find out all we can about him.’ She paused. ‘But we don’t bin the stuff we’ve already done on the Camberwells. It remains a possible avenue until I decide otherwise. Agreed?’

  Her two juniors nodded.

  ‘Fine. Let’s get to work. Maybe a visit to the pub is in order tonight when we finish. Although I desperately want a shower and change of clothes to get rid of that foul smell. I think it’s just my imagination. Reassure me please, Rae. You didn’t come into the bedroom.’

  Rae came closer and sniffed cautiously.

  ‘It is your imagination, ma’am. Not a trace. You were both wearing romper suits, remember?’

  ‘Sometimes those things do have their uses,’ came the answer.

  Chapter 23: Film Star Looks

  Friday morning, week 2

  Dave Nash, the forensic chief with the film star looks, so breathtakingly handsome that he’d even give George Clooney a run for his money, stood opposite Sophie and scratched his ear.

  ‘Dave, stop doing that. As it is, you’ve got half the women in the station watching you instead of getting on with their work. It gets worse when you actually move in some way rather than sitting still. You ought to go round with a hazard warning around your neck. Let’s go through to my office where I can ogle you without any competition.’

  Laughing, the forensic chief followed Sophie to her temporary office and sat down.

  ‘What do you have for me?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘Well, remember that this is early days, so there’ll be more to come. We’ve finished dusting the flat. There are two sets of prints that are all over the place, those of Wethergill himself and the cleaner. But we also found a third set in a few places, including the bedroom. We also found what looks like lipstick on the bathroom mirror, as if a message had been written there. It took a bit of time to reconstruct it, but it appears to be a phone number.’ He passed across a photo of the mirror and a note with the number written on it. ‘There are also photos of several Thai or Philippino women, so he may have been in contact with a dating agency of some kind, although they look quite old.’

  ‘The photos or the women?’

  Nash laughed. ‘The photos. I’m not as sexist or ageist as people may think.’

  Sophie smirked. ‘I never thought you were. Can you confirm the presence of cyanide?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been in touch with Dr Goodall. Doubtless you’ll be seeing him yourself, but it looks certain that it was cyanide poisoning. We took samples in order to analyse the contents of that jar, and it was potassium cyanide just as the label said. It’s currently locked in a store cupboard in my office. There were also traces in the tumbler on the bedside table, along with some alcohol. Everything adds up, Sophie.’

  ‘Anything else of interest?’

  ‘We found his wallet on a shelf. It had a credit card receipt from an Italian restaurant in it, with Wednesday evening’s date. Guessing from the total, I’d say he had dinner with someone.’ He handed her a plastic sleeve containing the receipt. ‘I have the cleaners in now, getting the bedroom back to some sort of normality. It’s all yours from this afternoon onwards. I’ll send you copies of all our videos and photos as soon as I’m back in my office. Is that all okay?’

  Sophie nodded. She was serious now, the mischievous smile gone. ‘Of course. You always do a brilliant job, Dave. I’m really grateful for the extra effort you put in, and I trust you completely.’

  ‘But this isn’t what you were expecting? Am I right?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. It came as a total shock. We were already well down another road entirely. Ah well. Such is life. I’ll chase up the restaurant angle right now, then follow up on the phone number. We’ll visit the flat this afternoon. Did anything show up on the envelope of money that we gave you?’

  ‘Lots of prints from the cleaner, as you’d expect. She obviously took the money out to count it, then replaced it. A couple of Wethergill’s prints on the envelope and some of the notes but not all. And prints from a third person, not yet identified. Every single bank note as well as a single smudged print on the envelope. It’s possible that whoever it was tried to wipe it off.’

  * * *

  ‘Well, here’s an interesting one, Barry.’ Sophie stood leaning against Marsh’s desk. ‘Ristorante Italia on the High Street confirmed that someone answering Wethergill’s description was there Wednesday evening, dining with a woman. Apparently she was late, and the staff could see that he was getting restless. His date did arrive in the end, though, and she was well worth the wait, according to the manager. A middle-aged woman, very attractive and very well-dressed. He s
aid they seemed very intimate with each other. I wonder if she’s the person who left the lipstick message on the bathroom mirror? Shall we give the number a go? I want you to listen in on your extension.’

  Sophie waited until Marsh was ready and dialled the number, that of a mobile phone. It was answered after two rings.

  ‘Good morning. This is Detective Chief Inspector Sophie Allen of Dorset police. Who am I speaking to, please?’

  The voice was cultured. ‘I’m Pauline Stopley. How can I help you?’

  ‘Pauline, did you visit the Ristorante Italiana on Wednesday night?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Why?’

  ‘Were you with someone?’

  ‘Yes. I had a dinner date with John Wethergill.’

  ‘And was it you who left this phone number in his flat?’

  A short laugh. ‘Yes. In lipstick, on the bathroom mirror. It was a bit of light-hearted nonsense after my visit at the weekend.’

  ‘Were you in the flat on Wednesday night?’

  ‘No. I’d had a couple of busy days of meetings in London and I was just too tired. I’ll be seeing him tonight, though. He’s coming round to mine. It’s my turn to cook. Why?’

  Sophie continued. ‘Are you a longstanding friend or partner, Pauline?’

  ‘Goodness, no. We only met for the first time on Saturday. I’ve seen him three times in total, but he’s a really nice bloke. Can I ask why for a third time, since you haven’t explained yet?’

  ‘I really need to see you, Pauline. Would it be best if I came to you, or would you prefer to drop into the police station?’

  There was a pause. ‘This sounds serious. I’m at work at the moment, but I’m only five minutes’ walk from you. I’ll come over. Who do I ask for again?’

  ‘DCI Sophie Allen. I’ll have someone waiting.’

  * * *

  Pauline hurried into the foyer of the police station, looking anxiously around her. Marsh walked towards her.

  ‘I’m DS Barry Marsh, Ms Stopley. If you’ll come with me, I’ll take you to the DCI’s office. It will only take a moment.’