The DI Tremayne Thriller Box Set

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Any signs of anyone in the family acting differently?’ Clare asked.

  ‘Not that I’ve seen. And if they had the gold, they could have had it for seventeen years.’

  Tremayne and Clare realised that there was no more to be gained from Ethan Mitchell’s ex-wife. They left the house and headed back to Bemerton Road Police Station.

  ***

  Back at the station, Clare headed up to Homicide to start preparing the reports; Tremayne headed over to Forensics.

  ‘What can you tell us?’ Tremayne asked.

  ‘You’re a bit premature. The body’s in with Pathology, the letter is under analysis.’

  ‘Give me whatever you have.’

  ‘The letter is written on paper you can buy in any newsagent.’

  ‘How about the bullets?’

  ‘Once we have them, give us a couple of hours. We’ll not be able to tell you the make of weapon, although Pathology should be able to give you a distance the body was away from the gun when it was fired.’

  ‘We’re sure it was about ten feet,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘We’ll confirm.’

  Tremayne, realising that he was not going to get much more, returned to Homicide. In his office, Superintendent Moulton. ‘Interesting case you’ve got here,’ he said. Tremayne knew him as a procedures man, keen on reports, pedantic over expenditure.

  ‘I arrested the dead man eighteen years ago,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘What’s this about his dead brother killing him?’

  ‘Speculation. There’s a letter. It purports to have been written by Martin, but it can’t be. I was at the scene when he was murdered, and the man was definitely dead.’

  ‘You’re not going to try and convince me it’s the spirit of the dead man?’

  ‘Superintendent, how long have you known me?’

  ‘It seems forever.’

  ‘Five years at least. We’ve had a few strange cases, but nothing that couldn’t be explained. Spirits and ancient gods and whatever are just pure nonsense and should be filed away with the fairies at the bottom of the garden.’

  ‘Yet you still wear a crucifix around your neck.’

  ‘Force of habit, nothing more. Yarwood, she was freaked out by what happened at Avon Hill. I wear it more for her benefit than mine.’

  ‘Don’t pretend, Tremayne. You were freaked out as well.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, and we saw things that can’t be explained.’

  ‘Yarwood?’

  ‘She’s still susceptible. If there’s not a rational explanation for the murder of Ethan Mitchell, she’ll have me believing it was a ghost that killed him, especially if the letter is found to be genuine.’

  ‘Is that likely?’ Moulton said. He had come down to Homicide to talk about Tremayne’s retirement. He decided against bringing it up this time, and besides, Tremayne and murder made for an interesting conversation.

  ‘Whoever killed Mitchell was flesh and bones, I know that.’

  ‘His family?’

  ‘We’ve met the man’s ex-wife. They’ve been divorced a long time. We’re working our way around the other family members. There are one or two bad apples in there. None are known for violence.’

  Chapter 3

  Jim Hughes phoned after Moulton had left. ‘Nine millimetre bullet. The gun had been fired at a distance of approximately ten feet. One bullet to the heart, the other two to the body.’

  ‘We have to assume Ethan Mitchell knew the person,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘Why? The man was confused. A letter from a dead brother, a church, who knows what he was thinking. The pathologist will send his report in due course,’ Hughes said.

  Tremayne called in Clare. ‘We’ve a few relatives to see. Are you ready?’

  ‘Which one first?’

  ‘Ethan’s and Martin’s brother. We’ll find him not far from here. He runs an electrical repair shop.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Gavin Mitchell said. Clare could see that he was shorter than Ethan. He was behind the counter of his small shop, surrounded by electrical appliances. The place smelt of cigarettes; Clare did not like it.

  ‘Your brother.’

  ‘I’ve heard. All that money and he left us scratching around.’

  ‘Business not good?’ Tremayne said.

  ‘What do you think? It’s cheaper to buy new than repair.’

  ‘So why do they?’

  ‘Beats me. They still come in, mainly the elderly. They’ve not embraced the modern disregard for assets. Me, I look after my gear, not like Ethan or Martin ever did.’

  ‘Did you ever go and see Ethan in prison?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘He was your brother.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it? He killed Martin.’

  ‘Would you have been interested in the gold?’

  ‘I’ve always kept to the straight and narrow, stayed honest.’

  Tremayne turned to Clare. ‘Gavin, we’ve nothing against him,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Mitchell, your brother is murdered, and you act as though it was nothing,’ Clare said.

  ‘I can’t pretend to care when I don’t. The man could have gone anywhere. But no, not Ethan, he’s back here opening old wounds, making people remember. Betty, Ethan’s wife, she’s got on and made something of herself, although she’s got Gerry to worry about. Marcia, Ethan’s and Betty’s daughter, is fine, got herself a nice little shop, making more money than me.’

  ‘What about the gold?’

  ‘What do you want me to say? None of us has it, although there are a few in Salisbury who would have twisted Ethan’s arm to make him talk.’

  ‘Twisted?’ Tremayne said.

  ‘Beat the hell out of him, cut him up, stub out lighted cigarettes on him. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but the gold that’s missing, how much is it worth?’

  ‘Over seven million pounds.’

  ‘And Ethan’s in a church getting shot. The man was stupid. He should have just come back, taken the gold and left. He had kept the secret for eighteen years, and the first thing he does is to come back and start chasing ghosts.’

  ‘You’ve heard about the letter?’

  ‘Is it genuine?’

  ‘Not from Martin, it’s not,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘Well, who wrote it?’ Mitchell said.

  ‘Among your many skills, how are you with forgery?’

  ‘Tremayne, you’re a miserable bastard, you know that. We’ve known each other for over twenty years, and you can’t resist trying it on.’

  ‘I know it,’ Tremayne admitted.

  ‘If it wasn’t Martin, then who was it?’ Gavin asked.

  ‘We’ve no idea. If I didn’t know you so well, you would have been a suspect.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘You could have fooled Ethan in that church.’

  ‘Not before I had found out where the gold was.’

  ‘Did you hate Ethan enough to kill him?’

  ‘I hated him for what he did to the family, Martin as well, but murder, not me.’

  ***

  Tremayne was perplexed after the conversation with Gavin Mitchell. He felt the need for a pint of beer. The New Inn in Bridge Street satisfied his requirements, although he had to stand outside so he could smoke a cigarette. Clare, a non-smoker, waited just inside the open door, feeling some of the heat from inside. Tremayne stood outside, shivering.

  ‘You should give them up,’ Clare said. ‘They’ll be the death of you.’

  Clare realised a lecture from her was not going to change the man, and not even Jean, Tremayne’s former wife, who was now spending increasingly more time with him, could either.

  ‘What did you reckon to the elder brother?’ Clare said.

  ‘Let me finish this cigarette, and then we’ll talk inside. Order me a pint, a glass of wine for yourself.’

  The barman, known to both of the police officers, did not need Clare to place the order; he knew what they wanted. Clare found a place in one c
orner and waited for Tremayne; he came in soon enough. ‘It’s a good beer in here,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t say the same for the wine.’

  ‘Why kill the man and why did he go to the church?’ Tremayne said.

  ‘That’s two questions. Is there anyone with that much hatred they’d want to kill him?’

  ‘You’ve met Ethan’s ex-wife as well as his brother. Neither of them is flush with money, and Ethan was sitting on a fortune, supposedly.’

  ‘But is he?’ Clare said. ‘Everyone assumes he had the gold somewhere, but what if it’s a story put out by Ethan?’

  ‘Illogical,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘Then why the church, the letter? Whoever lured him there had a reason, and that reason was to silence him.’

  ‘Ethan killed his brother. He must have known he wasn’t going to meet him unless he believed in spirits from beyond the grave.’

  ‘You knew the man. What do you think?’

  ‘Ethan never struck me as the sort of person who’d believe in such things. You’ve got to have a better reason for him being there.’

  ‘Whoever it was must have known how Martin wrote, his signature.’

  ‘Which indicates his family.’

  ‘What about the drivers of the van? What did they know? Were they in league with the twins?’

  ***

  Marcia, the daughter of Ethan and Betty, was friendly as Tremayne and Clare entered her shop. It was small but well-presented. Clare remembered buying a blouse there once.

  ‘Marcia, how are you?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Tremayne, it’s been some time.’

  Marcia closed the door to the shop. ‘A few minutes won’t make any difference,’ she said.

  ‘Your father?’ Tremayne said.

  ‘I should just shut up and go and spend time with my mother, but it won’t help.’

  ‘That’s understood,’ Clare said. She had found keeping busy the best therapy when her fiancé had died.

  ‘I used to visit him, but after so many years away in prison, I can’t say I knew him that well,’ Marcia said. ‘Bob’s been more of a father to me than Dad ever was. I’m sad, of course, but what more can I say.’

  ‘Bob?’ Clare said.

  ‘He married my mother after our father went to prison.’

  ‘The last time you saw your father, what was his mood like?’ Clare said.

  ‘It was a few months back, his birthday. He was looking to get out, not sure what he would do,’ Marcia, slim, short-haired, and with a mellow voice, said.

  ‘Salisbury?’

  ‘He had nowhere else to go. The family wouldn’t want much to do with him. After all, he did kill my uncle. My mother moved on, he hasn’t.’

  ‘We’ve got your brother in custody,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘We can’t hold it against you,’ Marcia said. ‘Gerry was always trouble, even as a child. Our father’s in prison, you’d think he would have learnt that crime doesn’t pay, or at least, the Mitchell version.’

  ‘That’s the trouble,’ Tremayne said. ‘Ethan and Martin never did.’

  ‘Gerry?’

  ‘He never thought it through either. He’d attempted to steal an antique bracelet and a necklace, both valuable, both recognisable. He could have sold them down the pub for a couple of hundred pounds, possibly to a fence for a couple of thousand, but Gerry failed to see the alarm in the jeweller’s.’

  ‘Any chance of a reduced sentence under the circumstances?’ Marcia said.

  ‘Unlikely.’ Tremayne said.

  ***

  ‘What about this letter? How long before Forensics can give us an update?’ Tremayne said as he and Clare were heading back to the police station on Bemerton Road.

  ‘They’ll contact us soon enough,’ Clare said, knowing that Tremayne was not the sort of man to wait in his office for a phone call or an email. He was hands-on, he wanted to be out on the street looking for people and clues, or else in the interview room trying to get the truth out of someone.

  The Forensics department, modern and efficient, its people in white lab coats, did not always appreciate unwelcome visitors, although, with Tremayne, they had come to expect him wandering in the door.

  ‘This is a smoke-free zone,’ Louise Regan, the head of Forensics, a studious-looking woman with thick-framed glasses, said.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Tremayne said, putting his cigarette packet back in his pocket.

  ‘Just remember for the next time,’ the woman said. Clare and Louise both knew that Tremayne would not. He was a man set in his ways, a man who had entered the police force over thirty years ago when smoking and drinking pints of beer were expected.

  ‘What do you have?’

  ‘Did you have an envelope?’ Regan asked.

  ‘Just the letter.’

  ‘Sometimes we can pick up DNA off the back of a stamp where they licked it. We’re still conducting an analysis of the dead man’s writing.’

  ‘Martin Mitchell?’

  ‘His brother Ethan as well. He wouldn’t be the first person to write a letter to himself.’

  ‘We’ve assumed it was the person who shot him.’

  ‘We’ll need handwriting from all the possible suspects. Are there many?’

  ‘The immediate family, no one else.’

  ‘We’ll organise it if you give us the details.’

  ‘But what can you give us now?’ Tremayne did not require a lecture on how Forensics operated. He needed something tangible.

  ‘The paper is from an A4 notebook, the sort you can buy anywhere.’

  ‘Does that make the letter recent?’

  ‘We believe the letter was written in the last four to six weeks.’

  ‘Any reason for the time?’

  ‘Experience.’

  ‘Was the letter written in Salisbury?’

  ‘The envelope may have helped, but apart from that, impossible to tell.’

  ‘What about the writing?’

  ‘We believe it was written with a black ball-point pen. As to the handwriting, we do have examples of Martin and Ethan Mitchell’s signatures, and Ethan’s writing.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The connecting strokes vary, and the slanting is more severe on the letter than the examples we have.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘It’s not conclusive, but there’s a strong possibility that neither of the two men wrote the letter.’

  ‘What can you tell us about the bullets that Ethan Mitchell was shot with?’

  ‘Nine millimetre Makarov.’

  Chapter 4

  Tremayne remembered the last time he had spoken to an insurance company representative, other than when they were taking his money. It was over thirty years previously. He and Jean had moved into a new house. Even though he was a police sergeant, it had counted for nothing when the house had been burgled, and the claim had been voided.

  And now, a man in his mid-thirties was standing before him. ‘Paul Rudd, Gainsford Insurance.’

  ‘The bullion?’ Tremayne said.

  ‘My company paid out on what was never recovered. With the case now reopened, we’re interested to see what happens.’

  ‘We’re not looking for the gold, only who murdered Ethan Mitchell.’

  ‘That’s understood, but…’

  ‘There are no buts. We’re focussing on a murdered man, not on what he had stolen.’

  ‘It’s part of the enquiry.’

  ‘If we find the gold, we’ll let you know.’

  ‘I’ll keep in contact,’ Rudd said. Tremayne realised that the man was only doing his job, but he couldn’t help feeling a little peeved that the insurance company were sticking their grubby hands in. When he had made that claim, he remembered the trouble he’d had. He knew he would not be going out of his way to help Rudd, but the man was right. The missing gold did have some bearing on the murder investigation. He called Clare into his office. ‘The missing gold, what do we know about it?’

 
‘A private investor who wanted to store the money at his home, not far from Salisbury.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘You were there when it was stolen,’ Clare said.

  ‘I know what it was worth then. How much in today’s money?’

  ‘Forty London Good Delivery bars, 99.5 per cent pure gold, approximate weight about four hundred ounces, or 12.5 kilogrammes in metric. Each bar is worth about three hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling. You recovered twenty bars, there’s another twenty missing. That’s about seven million seven hundred and forty thousand pounds sterling not recovered.’

  ‘How much was it when the insurance company paid out?’

  ‘Almost one and a half million pounds.’

  ‘If we find the gold for them, they’re in profit by six million pounds.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ Clare said.

  ‘And my lousy claim was for four hundred pounds, and they knocked it back. Parasites, the lot of them.’

  ‘Regardless of the value, it doesn’t answer why Ethan Mitchell was shot. It can’t have been for the missing gold.’

  ‘Yarwood, I don’t follow your logic.’

  ‘Ethan’s supposed to be the only one who knew where it was, and he’s dead. Either the person who shot him knows where it is, or he’s not interested.’

  ‘Everyone’s interested. I’d even break the law for it,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘You wouldn’t, nor would I.’

  ‘Two complete idiots, that’s us.’

  ‘Honest and poor,’ Clare said.

  ‘What do we know about the man the gold was being delivered to?’

  ‘Selwyn Cosford. You interviewed him.’

  ‘He’s in his eighties. If you’re thinking insurance fraud, you’ve left it a bit late,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘You must have checked if there was any connection back then,’ Clare said.

  ‘Not as fully as we should. We had a murder to deal with. Ethan had killed Martin in a drunken rage, that was our primary consideration. The missing gold was circumstantial. Others looked for it, not Homicide.’

  ***

  Gerry Mitchell, Betty and Ethan’s son, had had a troubled upbringing. It wasn’t easy, Tremayne knew, to be the butt of schoolyard jokes about your father. However, it didn’t excuse the young man’s truculent attitude, his only defence when younger. Tremayne and Clare met up with him. He was in a combative mood. ‘I heard about him,’ Mitchell said.