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

by MICHAEL HAMBLING

  ‘Can you tell me what’s happened? Please?’

  Marsh shook his head. ‘Sorry. That’s for the DCI.’ He led her through to the back of the station, where he unlocked an interview room.

  ‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’

  ‘A glass of water will be fine.’ She looked tense and anxious.

  Sophie came in, shook hands and introduced herself. ‘Can I call you Pauline or would you rather I use your last name?’

  ‘Pauline is fine.’

  ‘I have some really upsetting news for you, Pauline. John Wethergill was found dead in his flat by his cleaner yesterday morning.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Pauline. ‘But how? He seemed absolutely fine when I left him outside the restaurant. He only had an easy five minute walk to get home. What on earth happened?’

  ‘We don’t have the full details yet but the circumstances seem suspicious.’

  Pauline put her hand to her brow. ‘I can’t believe it. How could it happen? Are you sure it’s him?’

  ‘Yes. His cleaning lady is certain. His appearance matches the photos in the flat, and one of my officers has been round to his shop. His staff were concerned when he didn’t come in yesterday morning.’ She paused. ‘It may well be that you were the last person to see him alive, Pauline. With that in mind, I’ll need a full statement about your date with him on Wednesday night. Would you like to do that now or some other time? I’d prefer to get it out of the way as soon as possible, while it’s fresh in your mind. We’ll also need to take your fingerprints since you’ve been in his flat, even if it was only once. Shall we change that water for a cup of tea?’

  Pauline nodded, still looking dazed. The interview lasted another twenty minutes and when it was over Sophie mentioned that her daughter, Hannah, had met Pauline briefly at the weekend after the talk on FGM. Pauline nodded and said she remembered talking to her about the theatre.

  Just after twelve, Rae returned to the incident room. She had been visiting Wethergill’s hardware shop and the Italian restaurant that the couple had gone to on Wednesday. Pauline Stopley had just left, so the three detectives spent some time crosschecking her statement with that of the restaurant manager. Everything matched.

  ‘One thing, ma’am,’ Rae said. ‘According to the manager there was another couple sitting at a table close by who may well have heard some of their conversation. It might be worth checking with them. They’re regulars, so he gave me their details.’

  ‘Good work, Rae. Go ahead. I just want to be reassured that nothing was said that might have tipped him over the edge. At the moment it looks like their date was free of friction, but all verification is good verification.’

  The fingerprint check showed that the third set of prints belonged to Pauline Stopley. They were found in the lounge, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. There were several sets on the headboard.

  ‘We’ll need to hear her explanation for those, won’t we, ma’am?’ Marsh said.

  ‘Already done, Barry. We had a brief chat out of your earshot after she had her prints taken. She told me they’d spent Sunday night together in his flat. She said her prints would be all over the bedroom. Take that any way you want. I just find it makes his death a bit peculiar. He’d just found a new woman, a rather sexy one at that, so you’d think he would be feeling pleased with life. But instead he apparently commits suicide. Does it add up?’

  ‘But the suicide was about something entirely different, wasn’t it? It was about the bodies. Maybe he realised that sooner or later we’d get to know that he was the gardener at the time they were buried. He knew he’d have to face up to it sometime. Why not when he was feeling happy and fulfilled? Go out when you’re on top?’ Marsh shrugged.

  Sophie frowned. ‘Maybe. It just bothers me a bit. I still want us to keep digging into the background, Barry. The fact that the children died twenty years ago doesn’t make the crime any less serious than one that happened recently. It was still an abhorrent act to put their bodies there, even if we finally decide that they died of natural causes. The fact that one of the people who was around then has topped himself doesn’t change anything. I still want to know why and how it happened, even if it’s hard to find the facts. Forensic science has moved on so much now. It can give us all kinds of leads that might not have been possible a quarter of a century ago. I still think that DNA profiling will be key to solving the case, but we’ve got to trace other family members for that.’

  ‘I’ve asked for an inventory of the items kept by the Bristol police after Li Hua’s death. The stuff will be in a box in some store-room somewhere, but the people I spoke to were pretty confident it could be found. The case is still open, after all. If we’re in luck there might be something like a hairbrush that can be used. I should get the list tomorrow. It might mean that we don’t have to wait until we find a family member before we can do a DNA check.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘That jar of potassium cyanide crystals at Wethergill’s flat was very old, judging by the state of the label. It might well predate 1995, the year we think the children’s bodies were buried. I just wonder if they were killed with the stuff. The problem is, I don’t think there’s any way of telling, not after so long. It would have leached out of the bodies and been broken down in the soil. It might be worth checking though. I’ll get onto some contacts I have in the environmental chemistry world. They might be able to tell me whether it’s worth testing the soil from around the bodies for residues. It’s a long shot but it might help us to know what went on all those years ago.’ She gazed out of the window. ‘Twenty years ago I was in my first detective job, in the Met, working under Harry Turner. I’d just returned to work from maternity leave, after having Hannah. It seems so long ago. What were you up to, Barry?’

  He pursed his lips. ‘I was in middle school, about halfway through. I’d just lost my father. He was a farmer in Purbeck, and he died when a stack of hay bales fell on him.’

  Sophie stared at him. ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me this when we were in the middle of all that hoo-ha about my father? I was so bound up with myself, I could have done with someone reminding me that others have gone through similar tragedies in their childhoods.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s all in the past, isn’t it? Get over it, that’s what I tell myself.’

  ‘Do you still miss him?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘Yes, I do. We were very close, him and me. Much closer than I was with my mum. The accident changed our lives completely. It made me decide not to stay in farming. One of the farm hands had stacked the rick really badly and my dad could see it was unsafe. He was trying to secure it when it happened.’

  ‘That’s awful. Did your mum get compensation?’

  ‘Yes. Dad was well insured and the worker was found to be negligent. Mum sold the farm and we moved to Swanage. She bought a little café.’

  Sophie looked perplexed. ‘Why didn’t you introduce us? We’ve been to Swanage often enough on cases.’

  ‘She’s not there now. She lives with my sister in Kent, and they run a café together. She moved away soon after I finished school,’ said Marsh.

  Sophie nodded, looking thoughtful, and then her mobile phone rang. She looked at the caller display and made a face.

  ‘Hello, Neil,’ she said, walking towards her office. ‘Yes, it was unfortunate. No, I don’t plan to scale things down right away.’ She listened. ‘I think I need to come and see you. We obviously need to talk, and the sooner the better. The problem is that I’m expecting Harry Turner to arrive soon. He’s the retired expert on child murder I told you about.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’m meeting his train in about half an hour. Is it okay if I bring him with me? Or you could come down here for his talk if you want, whichever you prefer.’ Another pause. ‘Okay, we’ll see you at about three.’

  Chapter 24: Snake

  Friday afternoon, week 2

  As the train made its way along the northern shoreline, Harry Turner looked out onto the mud-flats of Poole Harbou
r. Picturesque, he thought, particularly at high tide. Harry had his pocket binoculars to hand, and used them occasionally to spot some of the birds that rested on the marshy ground on their way to some distant breeding place. He glanced at his watch. Still half an hour to go before Dorchester. This would be the slowest part of the journey, winding through the Dorset countryside, with several steep inclines between Wareham and Dorchester. He took another sip of coffee and ate the last of his sandwiches.

  He thought about the task awaiting him. How best to go about the session with Sophie’s team? He decided to follow a question and answer approach. As long as he had his check list to hand it should be fine. A meal out in one of Wareham’s top pubs was planned for the evening, and then on Saturday the activity he was most looking forward to: a day spent bird watching with Martin Allen at the Arne RSPB reserve. It was a top site he’d never visited before, despite many years of promises to himself. The problem had always been its proximity to Wareham, and the protégé from his working years. He had never dared risk a meeting with her. As it happened Sophie herself had broken the impasse the previous week when she’d phoned to arrange their meeting in the pub at Waterloo. So here he was, looking forward to what might be the most enjoyable weekend he’d had for years. He felt almost young again.

  * * *

  ‘So, now the introductions are over, you can start to tell us what you know, Harry. I think you know the background to the case. What might be relevant?’ Sophie looked across at her ex-boss and gave him an encouraging smile.

  Harry Turner leaned back in his chair. ‘I’ll give you an introduction to the main ideas, then you can ask questions. I’ll try to be systematic. It’ll help you to make sense of current thinking if I cover it in a logical way, but I’m also a pragmatist. I’ll only include ideas that seem to relate to practical experiences and help to clarify things.

  Who are the child killers? Let’s go through the options, starting with those who are most closely linked. Parents, step-parents, siblings, half-siblings, step-siblings, uncles and aunts, other acquaintances, strangers. The emotional ties decrease in intensity as we go down the list. What this means is that the motives for child murder are likely to be very different in each case. We also need to make allowance for gender, both of the killer and the victim. A mother who kills her child will tend to have different motives from a father.

  Why would a mother kill her child? The main factors include mental illness, absence of maternal feelings, severe emotional immaturity, abnormal power play, a distorted sense of reality caused by drugs or alcohol. Fathers? Well, inability to cope with the dramatic changes to life at home, excessive jealousy of the mother-child bond, and again drugs or alcohol. Financial hardship can also be a significant factor. Any of these can play a part, and if several of the factors are present then the indicators are strong. In addition, and for both parents, we must include the possibility of psychopathy.’

  At the end of his talk Turner asked for questions.

  Rae Gregson was the first to speak. ‘You mentioned abnormal power play as a motive for a mother. Could you explain?’

  Harry nodded. ‘A woman, particularly someone of low social status and intelligence, might never have been in a position of power before. Never chosen as a prefect or monitor at school, never given a position of responsibility at work. She might not be in work. She’s never had any power over anyone before. In fact, it’s always been she who was the victim. And suddenly she is presented with a child who is totally dependent on her, particularly if she’s a single mum. Most mothers respond amazingly well in such a situation, but in a small number of cases the mother expresses her insecurities through a mixture of cruelty and dominance. Each act might be followed with a show of love for the child.’

  ‘So this particular reason probably wouldn’t apply if the mother was high achieving? A doctor for example?’

  ‘No. There the motives might be very different. For example, suppressed anger over an enforced career break, or something of that nature. It’s important to realise that the mother herself will be unaware of these motives. They will be bubbling away in the subconscious. As we go down the list I mentioned at the start, the motives shift from ones that are primarily subconscious to ones that are more likely to be at least partly rational. You should all recognise a general truth. Child killers, as a rule, don’t do it for a rational reason. Adults who are murdered are often killed for some type of gain, although emotion and temper still play a part. Few children are killed for gain. The motivations for their murders are twisted, and have been long suppressed. I’m generalising, of course. There are always exceptions. In the States for example, there have been cases where children have been murdered for insurance money.’

  Barry Marsh said, ‘there’s a possibility that these murders were committed by the gardener who was employed at the house. Where would that fit?’

  ‘He’d be an acquaintance. Let’s build a possible scenario. He visits regularly, maybe a half day each week. He watches them playing. Maybe they tease him. Possibly there was a sexual element in his interest. Maybe he had a proclivity for young girls or young boys. That’s where we hit the first problem. Usually it’s either girls or boys, not both. Though if one of them witnessed something, both would have to be killed.’

  ‘What might be the most likely method used to kill them?’

  ‘Strangulation or smothering. They were only six, weren’t they?’

  ‘Not cyanide poisoning?’

  Harry Turner frowned. ‘That’s highly unlikely, though there have been a couple of cases where a parent did use powerful poisons. It’s too cold-blooded, too rational, and would require the children to drink or eat something laced with the poison. And, if it was the gardener, how would you hide it from the parents and the authorities? In fact, if it was the gardener, what kept the parents so quiet? Why didn’t they call us in? It just doesn’t follow. Or was a parent killed at the same time? Is there another body?’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘We think the parents were already dead a year or two before, though we’re still waiting for the DNA profiling. We’ve had a sniffer dog in, and it didn’t react in any other spot. We’ve used all kinds of ground-penetrating devices, and nothing else has shown up. If there is another body, and my gut feeling is that there isn’t one, it’s somewhere else. And you know what that means, Harry. You taught it to me. If there’s no evidence of another body, don’t waste time looking for one. It probably doesn’t exist.’

  Turner smiled. ‘Absolutely right. It can be a real time-waster. Base your investigation on what you have, not what you might have.’ He paused. ‘Cyanide, eh? How would you go about finding that after twenty years?’

  ‘Difficult, but not impossible. I spoke to a chemistry professor at Southampton University and she got back to me this morning. Apparently cyanide becomes untraceable in the body within a few days, but it’s still there in a different form. It bonds very strongly to the iron in the blood, forming a complex. That’s what she called it. Anyway, it’s so stable that it stays around for ages. Years, even decades. I asked her if it can be identified in soil or fabric residues and she couldn’t see why not, though it’s never been documented in the forensic analysis literature. It will be much more difficult to carry out than a simple cyanide test, but she’s willing to give it a go. Dave Nash, our forensic chief, is sending her some samples as we speak. Maybe we’ll know by early next week. As far as the original cyanide is concerned, we’re tracking back through records covering a quarter of a century. The gardener also owned a hardware store, so he may have had contacts that way. However he got it, assuming it was him, it should be recorded somewhere.’

  Turner nodded slowly, and smiled. ‘You haven’t changed a bit, have you? There’s only one person I’ve ever worked with that would follow things up in such detail, and I’m looking at her right now. You’re totally relentless, and I say that in the best possible way.’ He turned to Neil Dunnett. ‘You do realise that you have a very special detective he
re, don’t you?’

  Dunnett smiled thinly and nodded. At the other end of the table, Rae visibly relaxed. She’d been dreading this encounter with Dunnett, but so far all was going well. She realised that another skirmish was being acted out in front of her eyes, and so far it was going in her favour.

  Turner continued. ‘Why do you think they might have been killed by the gardener rather than one of the parents?’

  ‘We can’t be absolutely sure just yet. We’re awaiting DNA confirmation, but if it comes back the way we think it will, we have a problem.’ Sophie paused. ‘Our dilemma is this. If the children are who we think they are, then, as I said, their parents both died before them. And that begs a whole raft of questions. Who was the woman who looked after them for six months and claimed to be their mother at the local primary school? Why did they move here from Bristol, where both parents seem to have been doctors? Were the parents’ deaths just coincidence? Was there some other link to John Wethergill, the gardener?’ She looked at Turner. ‘Those are questions for me to ponder, not you, Harry. But I would like to go a little deeper into his possible motives. You sounded just now as if you were unconvinced.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it that strongly. And I did say that there could have been a sexual motive. But I would have thought that someone capable of killing two small children because of some pathological deviancy would have shown up on police radar well before then. Any signs of that?’

  Marsh answered. ‘No. Not a mention, and I’ve gone back more than thirty years. Not a whisper. The only possibility is that he was using an alias.’

  ‘Which, of course, is always something we have to consider.’ Turner ran his hand through his thinning hair. ‘I just wonder whether it could have been accidental. If he had the cyanide for some reason linked to his gardening, and the children tragically ingested some. Could he have been confused and distraught enough to bury them and hide the evidence that way? It’s a possibility, isn’t it?’