The DI Tremayne Thriller Box Set

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Mrs Winters, I’m afraid you don’t deserve anything from your children. You knew that your daughter had been raped, yet you did nothing. What were you planning to do? Sell her off to the local perverts? What sort of mother are you? Did you kill Alan, arrange for someone to take him up to Stonehenge and cut his throat?’

  ‘Why would I do that? He was my son, I loved him.’

  ‘Mrs Winters, you love no one. You are beneath contempt. If Mavis wants you out and with Cyril, then she is within her rights.’

  Downstairs Tremayne and Clare found Mavis Winters involved in the redecorations. ‘What do you reckon? Mavis asked.

  ‘She’s a hard woman,’ Clare said. ‘She knew about Margie.’

  ‘Poor Margie, she’s beyond hope.’

  ‘Bertie?’

  ‘He said you had given him an earful. Thanks for that.’

  ‘Will it help?’

  ‘He’s back in rehab, but no. He’ll try if pushed and I’ll maintain a firm hand, but he’s an adult. Apart from keeping him out of trouble, it’s up to him, and I’m afraid he just doesn’t have it in him.’

  ‘Rachel?’ Clare asked.

  ‘She’ll do well. Maybe she’ll be able to look after Bertie when I’m gone.’

  ‘You’re only young,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘I suppose so. I’m just hoping that Bertie will outlive me.’

  ‘Will he?’

  ‘He’s entitled to some of the money. There’s not much I can do to stop it. Our solicitor set it up. When he reaches twenty-five, he’s entitled to ten per cent, so is Rachel. It’s a shame Alan died.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If he had lived, it would have been ten per cent of nothing. I’ve limited the losses; there’ll be over thirty million, and with some investments, it should be more. I’m learning economics, money management on the internet.’

  ‘Polly Bennett and Liz Maybury?’

  ‘I was angry that day, but I didn’t intend for one of them to end up in hospital. I’ve spoken to Polly, told her that the two of them can keep the flat and the cars. They’ll still belong to me, though.’

  ‘The furniture store?’

  ‘Maybe they can manage it for me, as long as Gerry keeps away.’

  ‘Will he?’

  ‘They’ll not give him the time of day if he doesn’t have any money.’

  ‘You’ll ensure that?’

  ‘He’s got a job here. I’ll pay him twice what he’s worth, but it’s nothing like the money that Alan had. They’ll not waste their time on him.’

  ‘And Alan’s mother?’

  ‘There’s Cyril’s place. She doesn’t deserve any better.’

  Clare could only agree. She knew she needed a drink. The time with the mother had left her feeling upset and down. The lot of a police officer is what Tremayne would say, but it still didn’t alter the fact that she had spent time upstairs in that house with an evil woman.

  ***

  Gerry Winters was not the most pleasant of men, in that he had a history of low-level violence in the city: drunken brawls, arguments with the neighbours, roughing up one of his girlfriends.

  The first time they had visited the house in Quidhampton, he had been at the entrance keeping away the media and the general public after the death of Alan had become known. And whereas the media interest had waned, the beaming face of Alan Winters holding the cheque for sixty-eight million pounds still graced some magazine covers, the story inside plotting the fall of the luckiest man in England from infinite wealth to eternal death, the murder described in as much detail as possible. Stonehenge, the location of his death, was open to the general public again, although as always, the inner circle was restricted to just a few visitors, apart from during the summer solstice when the Druids and the other lovers of nature made a pilgrimage to the site.

  ‘What do you want, Tremayne? Haven’t you caused enough damage as it is?’ Gerry Winters said. He was propping up the bar at the Old Mill in Harnham, the Bentley not visible outside.

  ‘It’s a murder investigation. A few eggs will be cracked on the way, and besides, what do you mean? Nothing’s happened to you.’

  ‘She’s put me on wages, her own brother-in-law. What right does she have?’

  ‘It’s her money.’

  ‘It’s not. I drove him to that newsagent. I lent him the money to buy the damn ticket and then what happens? He goes and wins.’

  ‘He repaid your loan?’

  ‘We always joked that if either of us won, we’d share it with the other.’

  ‘And he reneged on the deal?’

  ‘It was her. She wouldn’t let him.’

  ‘Are you sure? Or is it just a few pints of anger and bitterness?’

  ‘I’ve only had two.’

  Tremayne looked over at the barman. He shook his head, raised one hand, palm forward, all five fingers.

  ‘How about you and the two women?’ Tremayne asked.

  ‘Not a chance there. I liked Polly, but she only wants rich money.’

  ‘You could borrow the money from Mavis, set up your own business,’ Clare said. She was sipping from a glass of wine, Tremayne was on his second pint of beer. If Gerry Winters was feeling sorry for himself, drinking more than he should, then an otherwise hidden fact might be revealed.

  ‘What skills do I have?’

  ‘You must be good at something.’

  ‘Hard work is for mugs. Alan didn’t do anything with his life, and he ended up rich.’

  ‘Rich and dead,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘What can you tell us about the night? Where were you? And what’s the truth with you and Mavis?’

  ‘I thought I could take her off Alan’s hands after he died.’

  ‘And before?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘According to Polly Bennett and Liz Maybury, on one of the occasions he took them back to his house, Mavis was occupied in another room. Any truth to that and was it you?’

  ‘Not me. And I don’t believe it. Mavis was a decent woman, still is, and whereas Alan was a waste of space, she was the one who kept the house together.’

  ‘Apart from Bertie?’

  ‘It runs in the family.’

  ‘What? General apathy and disinterest in anything other than screwing and getting drunk. And what about Margie? She’s in a terrible state. Don’t you care about her?’

  ‘What are you, Tremayne, a bleeding social worker or a police officer? How we run our lives is none of your concern, nor your sergeant’s, granted that she’s prettier than you. How about it, luv? Fancy a man down on his luck?’

  ‘I’ve spent an unpleasant forty-five minutes with your mother. You don’t want my answer and don’t treat me as one of your tarts. We know about your arrangement with the two women. How you’d look after their interests, how they’d look after you.’

  ‘I told you that.’

  ‘They’ll not be interested now. You’ve got nothing to offer, not even a ride in the Bentley.’

  ‘Mavis has me trapped. She knows I’ll keep working for her. I’m no better than a lap dog.’

  ‘It’s better than the alternative. There’s always a spare bed at Cyril’s house, or maybe you can lodge with Dean, although his wife would have you jumping through hoops.’

  ‘Another bitch.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She wears the trousers in that house. If it weren't for her, we’d be able to go down there, Dean would come up here. As it is, he keeps his distance.’

  ‘He’s never asked for money.’

  ‘Dean, he knows the value of money, but she’s extreme, believes that hard work, not charity, is the solution. She’d rather sleep on the street than come up here and ask for help.’

  ‘She sounds a decent woman, a person who believes that it is the individual who determines their future, not a lottery ticket.’

  ‘Lovely words, no doubt, but do you believe that rubbish? Dean’s wife is a bitch; the one time we saw her, she launched in
to a tirade about how she was going to make one of the Winters into someone respectable, and as far as she was concerned, the rest could go to hell, especially the mother.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I hit her, right across the face.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘She hit me back, harder than I hit her. Dean stood there, his mouth wide open. She grabbed him by the arm and shot out of the house. None of us has seen her or Dean since, apart from Alan that one time.’

  ‘How long ago since you’ve seen Dean?’

  ‘It must be fifteen years.’

  ‘Not even your mother?’

  ‘She doesn’t care anyway.’

  ‘You dislike your mother the same as the others?’

  ‘Dislike? That’s probably right. She wasn’t there for us when we were young.’

  Chapter 9

  Tremayne, back in the office, sat at his desk. He was leaning back, eyes closed, the front two legs of the chair off the ground. Clare could see that he was mentally going over the case so far; she decided to give him a few minutes until he’d concluded, or until the chair collapsed under his weight. The man was neither small nor light, and the chair was not heavy-duty.

  Clare continued with her paperwork, an unfortunate result of the computer age, where the administrators enjoyed thinking up new ways to keep people confined to their desks. Superintendent Moulton relished reports. Tremayne was dismissive of their superintendent, but she was not. To her, he was trying to keep the police station efficient without being overly authoritative.

  Clare typed away, pleased that she was capable with a keyboard, and a couple of hours every few days was enough for her to get through the bulk of the administrative tasks. Not that it helped Tremayne, who’d labour over every report he had to prepare, cursing under his breath as he pressed each key one after the other. It was painful to watch, and if he had wanted, she would have helped, but she knew him to be a proud man.

  Her boss, she knew, was a stereotype of the archetypical policeman: dedicated, terse in manner, economical in compliments, determined to leave no stone unturned, no matter how small it was. She saw him as an excellent character for a television series; he fitted the mould perfectly, though he would not have appreciated her analysis of him.

  Clare looked again. The man was now sitting on his chair, the four legs firmly on the ground again. It seemed the time for her to approach. ‘What’s the verdict, guv,’ she said.

  ‘What verdict? We’ve got nothing.’

  ‘We’ve got a lot of people. There’s a few in there who could have killed him.’

  ‘Mavis is the most likely, but she would have needed help. The man, we know, had some medical issues, even if he did not know about them, or didn’t care. Who would think that Stonehenge would be the ideal place? And the only people who would gain from his death are the immediate family. There’s no question that it was Alan Winters who purchased the ticket, or is there?’

  ‘I’ve checked. The man won the prize fair and square. The newsagent said he was a regular in the shop, always bought a ticket every week, before heading over to the pub. He placed a sign outside the shop after Winters had won. You know the sort of thing, buy your ticket here, you could have the same luck.’

  ‘And they fell for it as if the shop was blessed by the god of good fortune.’

  ‘Why not? People believe that if they see a four-leafed clover, it somehow foretells their future. Even you hold up your betting slip and say a few words as the horse lumbers around the track.’

  ‘That’s just fun, at least for me.’

  ‘For you, but some people believe in the rituals. We’ve spoken about this before, but there are some who would see Winters’ death as a rite of passage, the transference of his good fortune onto the murderer.’

  ‘Dean Winters said there was mongrel DNA. Maybe he knew something.’

  ‘He’ll not appreciate another visit, or his wife won’t.’

  ‘And you care, Yarwood?’

  ‘Not at all. If there’s a screw loose somewhere, we need to know. Maybe all of them, although some are just too lazy to do anything about it.’

  ‘Gerry Winters would, and he’s angry enough, believes that he was cheated out of his fair share of the money.’

  ‘Why was he? Legally he didn’t have a leg to stand on, but Alan was his brother. According to him, it was Mavis who did not honour the agreement, and if she had so much sway over her husband, why did she allow him to play around with other women?’

  ‘A visit to Mavis first, then on to Dean, is that it?’

  ‘I reckon so. I’ll make the phone calls.’

  ‘Don’t bother. We’ll just knock on the doors, judge the reaction,’ Tremayne said.

  ***

  Compared to their previous visits to the Winters’ house, it was quiet. The cleaners, the interior decorators, the general hubbub of family visiting to offer their sympathies no longer apparent.

  ‘She’s gone,’ Mavis Winters said as she opened the door.

  ‘Who?’ Clare asked.

  ‘His damn mother.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘Back to that depressing council house. She came down from her room, a stinking mess by the way, cost me plenty to get it fumigated and cleaned out, and she was in the kitchen accusing me of killing her beloved son. She’s one to speak, the old trollop. She didn’t care when he was alive, not even as a child, and there she is, lecturing me for all her worth.’

  ‘She went voluntarily?’ Tremayne said.

  ‘Not a chance. I grabbed her suitcase, stuffed a few of her belongings in it, and shuffled her out the door. Gerry dropped her off at Cyril’s house. It must have been some homecoming.’

  ‘And you don’t feel a little sad at what you’ve done?’ Clare said.

  ‘She was a wicked old woman, not deserving of any kindness. We reap what we sow, that’s something I remember from Sunday school, and she sowed plenty of weeds.’

  ‘It’s still sad,’ Clare said, remembering her grandmother who had passed away not long before her initial move to Salisbury. The grandmother had been loved, even though as she aged she became progressively more cantankerous, and here was a woman who professed no compassion for an old woman. Maybe it was right, in that the woman was demanding and embittered and had led a fruitless life, full of malignancy, but she was still an old woman, not more than a few years left in her. It just didn’t seem right to Clare.

  ‘Anyway, what are you here for? Not to talk about Polly Bennett and Liz Maybury?’

  ‘What’s happened to them?’ Clare said.

  ‘I’ve met up with Polly. I don’t mind the woman, apart from what she did. She’s smart enough, a bit of a tart, but then most of them are these days. No sooner are they out of their school uniform and they’re down behind the bike shed with the local stud.’

  Or in the other room with a young police officer, Clare thought but did not say it out aloud.

  ‘What have you agreed with her? Tremayne said, noticing the smirk on his sergeant’s face. He knew what she was thinking.

  ‘The two women can run the furniture store, keep the flat and cars. It’s a purely financial agreement. I need to consider the future, make some investments. They know that if they don’t make a go of it, they’re out on the street.’

  ‘You’ve forgiven them?’ Clare said.

  ‘It takes two to tango, or in their case, three. Men, they’re all the same, a tight arse, a wiggle, a heaving bosom pressed against them in the pub.’

  Clare, who had warmed to the woman since their initial meeting, could see a hardness developing. She wasn’t sure that she liked Mavis’s attitude. For the first time, she felt that Mavis could indeed be capable of murder.

  ‘We had come here to talk to you about two issues that give us concern, although I believe that you’ve answered the first one.’

  ‘Why I let him play around?’

  ‘That’s the first.’

  ‘What else could I do
? The man’s flush with money; he’s driving a Ferrari until he prangs it, then it’s a Bentley. The man was not a saint, and besides, I was busy enjoying myself as well.’

  ‘Other men?’

  ‘Not me, although there were opportunities. I was into expensive clothes, beauty treatments, eating at expensive restaurants, no longer looking in my purse wondering if I could afford to buy the brand-name food rather than the generic. We were both mad for a few months, and by then, Alan’s well entrenched into his lifestyle and I’m into mine. And then this house came along, and I’m busy indulging myself. Having unlimited money is seductive. It’s a mistress you can’t refuse, you know you should, but it’s impossible. It destroyed us in many ways, enriched us in others. Unless you’ve experienced it, you’ll never know.’

  ‘You could have given it away,’ Clare said.

  ‘That’s never an option. As much as you believe it’s the right thing, you will never do it.’

  ‘Did Gerry ever stake a claim on the money?’ Tremayne said.

  ‘That old chestnut, the belief that he was entitled to a half-share because he had driven Alan to the newsagent.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘How many times have you heard it? When I win the lottery, we’ll share the proceeds.’

  ‘Plenty, but no one ever does.’

  ‘We all used to joke about being rich, everyone does. It’s harmless make-believe, a fantasy.’

  ‘Your fantasy came true,’ Clare said.

  ‘It did. And then the people came. All of the relatives, Gerry at the front of the queue, even his mother, who somehow believed that giving birth to the winner gave her some rights.’

  ‘Did it?’

  ‘Nothing, although she’s been looked after, we even paid for a hip replacement, fixed up a few health problems. Apart from the relatives, there are the friends we never knew we had, even the newsagent where Alan bought the ticket. He thought he was entitled to at least fifty thousand.’

  ‘What did he get?’

  ‘Nothing. He had the ticket, could have purchased it for himself, instead of allowing the suckers to spend their wages on a frivolity.’

  ‘Not a frivolity in your case.’