The DI Tremayne Thriller Box Set

by Phillip Strang

  ‘I had promised to give the family forty-eight hours to consider my offer.’

  ‘And what would they have done? We would have caught whoever took you up on the offer, and they’d be doing time, the same as you. This is the best way.’

  ‘I know, but…’

  ‘There are no buts. Let’s get out of here before anyone sees us.’

  ‘The man on the way in, he saw us.’

  ‘He’s not seen the gold, and besides, he’ll not count for much.’

  ‘He’s a miserable bastard,’ Betty said. ‘I’ve met him before.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I used to come out with Marcia sometimes to see Ethan’s uncle.’

  ‘Which way back?’ Clare said.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s this way, I think.’

  The return trip was not as tricky as the outward journey, but now the two were carrying buried treasure. Clare had hold of two of the bars, Betty had one and the torch.

  ‘I can see the gatehouse over there,’ Clare said. ‘And there’s something propped up against it.’

  Betty shone the torch at the propped-up shape. ‘It’s a man,’ she said. The two women, still holding the bars, hurried forward.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Betty said. ‘It’s Gavin. He’s dead.’

  Clare took one look, checked for a pulse. She then took out her phone. ‘Jean, you’ll need to wake Tremayne. Organise a car for him if it’s necessary. He’s needed out at Emberley, the same place.’ She then phoned Jim Hughes.

  ***

  ‘A knife in the back,’ Hughes said. The crime scene team were scouring the area looking for additional clues, not confident they would find any more. After all, it had only been a few days since they had been through the area.

  ‘We retrieved the three missing bars,’ Clare said.

  ‘It’s a crime scene. What were you doing here without us?’

  ‘It was important.’

  ‘Maybe it was, but you could have destroyed vital evidence.’

  ‘We didn’t. And regardless, I’ve got to look after Betty.’

  ‘The pub was open when we came through. It may be best if you wait down there. Tremayne, is he on his way? Now there’s someone who breaks the rules. He’s taught you well.’

  Marcia, Betty’s daughter, was at the pub on their arrival. ‘Why, Mother?’

  ‘I wanted to help, and now Gavin’s dead. Who next?’

  Clare went to the bar and ordered two brandies. One for her, one for the woman she had brought out to the village. She knew there would be flak for entering a crime scene without prior approval. Even Tremayne, in the brief phone conversation she had had with him, had expressed his concern. He had not been critical, she knew him better than that.

  ‘I never told anyone where it was,’ Betty said. Her daughter had her arm around her.

  ‘Gavin figured it out, the same as I did.’

  ‘He could have asked. I would have told him.’

  ‘You said forty-eight hours,’ Marcia reminded her. ‘Maybe he didn’t want the others to know what he was up to.’

  ‘Someone did,’ Clare said.

  ‘Who would do that?’ Betty said.

  ‘Could it be the same person who killed Ethan at St Mark's?’ Marcia said.

  ‘We’ll let Forensics check the area,’ Clare said. ‘We’ll know more then. Marcia, can you look after your mother?’

  ‘I will.’

  Clare drove the short distance back to the gatehouse. Tremayne was there on her arrival. ‘I hope you got someone to drive,’ Clare said.

  ‘Jean brought me here. I’ll get a ride back with you when we leave.’

  ‘You’re looking better.’

  ‘I feel better, no thanks to you and Jean, cutting me back on my cigarettes. A man has got to have his vices, you must know that.’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘This is not good, Yarwood. You shouldn’t have been up here on your own with a possible suspect.’

  ‘It’s what you would have done.’

  ‘I know, but I’m longer in the tooth than you. The most they can do is pension me off. You’re bright and young, your future is ahead of you.’

  Clare walked over to Jean’s car. ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘He’s Tremayne. Indestructible, that man.’

  ‘They said that about the Titanic, or was it unsinkable?’

  ‘You were right to phone me up,’ Jean said. ‘If he had missed the action, he’d have been angry. Are you in trouble?’

  ‘Probably, but I’ll survive. There’s another body.’

  Jean left, and Clare walked back to where Tremayne and Hughes were discussing the latest death. ‘Comparing notes?’ Tremayne said.

  ‘I was just attempting to be sociable,’ Clare said. ‘What do we know about Gavin Mitchell’s death?’

  ‘A knife in the back, messy,’ Hughes said.

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Sometime during the day. We found Mitchell’s car down a lane to the rear of the village. The man must have been anxious for those three bars.’

  ‘You’ve got them?’

  ‘We have. What made you come out here?’

  ‘A hunch. It had to be Betty after you found that hair clip.’

  ‘We went over the area with a metal detector, surprised we didn’t find them.’

  ‘You’ve seen where they were. Nobody looked over there.’

  ‘That’s a mark against us. It looks as if you’re not the only one in trouble,’ Hughes said.

  ‘If we could focus,’ Tremayne said. ‘What’s the situation with Gavin Mitchell?’

  ‘We’re checking the area, but the man was looking for the gold.’

  ‘It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure that out.’ Tremayne said.

  ‘Maybe you should be back in your bed, Tremayne. If you hold on, I’ll give you the details,’ Hughes said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘The man had a powerful torch with him, as well as some implements for digging. He also had a metal detector. No idea why he thought the bars were here.’

  ‘I did,’ Clare said.

  ‘You’re trained to think, he wasn’t.’

  ‘Anyway, someone else must have had the same idea.’

  ‘His family?’

  ‘We had not advertised the fact that three bars were missing,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘Maybe you didn’t, but the word gets around. It’s a wonder the place wasn’t crawling with fortune seekers.’

  ‘I thought there was a watch on the area.’

  ‘There was, but they had been called away. The place has had no one here for the last eight hours.’

  ‘The blade entered the man in his back, and he would have died within minutes,’ Hughes said. ‘There’s more than one stab wound. Apart from that, there’s not much more to tell. We’re checking the area, but no fingerprints, no footprints that we can pick up. The place had plenty of people here not so long ago when we were checking, and Mitchell and whoever killed him kept to where we have been. Mitchell could have made it to the road in front and called for help. He would still have died, but he wouldn’t have remained around the back of the gatehouse.’

  ‘Why didn’t he?’ Tremayne asked.

  ‘Yarwood knows why,’ Hughes said.

  ‘He had caught his clothes on a protruding bolt at the back of the gatehouse. In his weakened state, he couldn’t break free.’

  ‘Where to, Yarwood?’ Tremayne said.

  ‘His family, and then Selwyn Cosford.’

  ‘Playing your hunches again?’

  ‘That man’s full of greed.’

  ‘He seems more obvious than the family.’

  ‘Could it have been someone unknown?’

  ‘It’s possible, but murder, that’s something else.’

  ‘So is a million pounds in gold. I’d kill for that,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘No, you wouldn’t, and neither would I.’

  ‘If you two are going to stand here and talk, I’m off,’ Hughes said.
‘There’s a crime scene team in need of leadership. We’ll hand the gold bars over as evidence during the day.’

  ‘Don’t leave them at reception, will you?’

  ‘At least you’ve got your humour back,’ Hughes said. ‘Not that it’s any good.’

  Chapter 14

  Social media picked up on the death of Gavin Mitchell within an hour. The fact that the gold had been retrieved, and there was nothing to be found or seen, did not deter the curious, the greedy, and the plain stupid from visiting Emberley. Extra uniforms had to be brought in from Salisbury to ensure that no one could get near the crime scene.

  ‘There are a lot of bored people out there,’ Superintendent Moulton said. Tremayne and Clare were in his office. Both were standing up.

  ‘What am I going to do with you two,’ Moulton said. ‘And sit down. You make the place look untidy.’

  It was the first dressing down for Clare, one of many for her senior. She looked over at him, noticed the sheepish and contrite look, knew that he was neither.

  ‘Tremayne, can’t you control your people?’

  ‘Sergeant Yarwood used her initiative. I can only commend her.’

  ‘If there hadn’t been another body, then maybe we could have brushed this over. What were you thinking, Yarwood?’ Moulton said.

  ‘Betty Galton, Ethan Mitchell’s former wife, had to be the person with the three bars of gold. I decided to confront her. She admitted to hiding the bars.’

  ‘But why didn’t you take someone from the crime scene team? What if there was evidence out there?’

  ‘I acted on the spur of the moment. No one knew where to look, and there was always the risk of someone else coming along to look for it. I wasn’t aware she had told her family, not immediately.’

  ‘Gavin Mitchell, what do we know about him?’

  ‘I’ve known him a long time,’ Tremayne said. ‘A solitary man. Sometimes he would go to the pub for a pint. Not much to tell. He kept to himself, had no criminal record, and he wasn’t close to Ethan. He showed no emotion when I spoke to him about his dead brother.’

  ‘Tremayne, what’s your health like? Don’t give me any of that “I’m fine, couldn’t be better”.’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘No, it’s not. I’ve got eyes, the same as Yarwood. She’s covering for you. Commendable in itself, but this is a police station, not an old dog’s home. Either you’re up to the task, or you’re not. I’ve got enough to put you out of your misery.’

  ‘But you’re not going to, sir.’

  ‘I’ve a fondness for old dogs.’

  Clare felt the need to speak. ‘DI Tremayne is conscious of his health, and he has voluntarily committed himself to a four-week detox. His cigarette smoking has been reduced, and he will be limiting his consumption of alcohol.’

  ‘He’s trained you well, I’ll grant him that,’ Moulton said. ‘Tremayne and a four-week detox. He wouldn’t even know the word. It’s you and Jean, you’ve ganged up on him. It’s amazing. I’ve spent years trying to pin him down, and then two women come along and succeed. Write up your report, solve these murders and get out of my office, will you.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Tremayne said.

  ‘Yarwood made an error, but no harm’s been done. You, Tremayne, are on your last legs and don’t pretend, but I’m not going to make martyrs out of either of you.’

  Outside Moulton’s office, Tremayne let out a sigh of relief. He turned to Clare. ‘What’s a four-week detox?’ he said.

  ‘Something you’re not going to like.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ***

  Tremayne and Clare were sitting in his office. ‘That went better than I expected,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘For you. I’ve got a black mark against me now.’

  ‘Not with Moulton. You did find the missing gold, but what about Betty? She’s guilty of a few crimes.’

  ‘We need to look after her.’

  ‘Yarwood, don’t get emotional with these people. Betty may be a decent person, but her family has got a history, and it’s not too good.’

  ‘Hers or the Mitchells?’

  ‘She married into the family. She must have known what Ethan was like.’

  ‘You’re not going to arrest her, are you?’

  ‘My life’s bad enough as it is with you and Jean. I don’t want to add to my burden by arresting the woman.’

  Clare made a phone call. Betty was out at her sister’s place – a family gathering.

  ‘I’m sorry about Gavin,’ Tremayne said to Sandra, the only surviving sibling, on his and Clare’s arrival at Julie and Eric Wilson’s house.

  ‘Why did he have to die?’

  ‘Why do people do a lot of things?’ Tremayne said. ‘Often it is the most innocent who suffer.’

  Clare noticed that Tremayne’s blunt approach at consolation did not work. She went over and put her arm around the woman. ‘We’ll find out who did it,’ she said.

  ‘One of those in here,’ Sandra’s reply.

  It seemed logical, Clare had to admit. On the sofa sat Betty, Marcia, and Julie. Standing in the far corner, Eric, Julie’s husband. Bob, Betty’s husband, sat on a chair close to the fireplace.

  ‘It wasn’t any of us. I refuse to believe it,’ Betty said. Tremayne thought she was only saying the words out of a need for them to be heard, not because she believed them.

  ‘We can’t rule out the possibility,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘We’ve no need of the money,’ Eric Wilson said.

  ‘A million pounds? Everyone has need of that sort of money, even you. I’m not here to point the finger. Gavin has died, and we need to find his killer. If he’s not here, then it must be someone who knew about the missing bars.’

  ‘It’s known by us. One of the others must have talked,’ Wilson said.

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘How about the others? Has anyone else felt the need to gossip,’ Tremayne said, looking over at Eric Wilson who was receiving disapproving glances from his wife.

  There’s a man who won’t be getting his dinner at home tonight, Tremayne thought.

  ‘Assume the others haven’t told anyone,’ Bob Galton said.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, Betty, but we’ll need to question everyone in turn,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘If it finds Gavin’s killer, Ethan’s as well.’

  ‘Yarwood worked on a hunch. You, Betty, were willing to give the bars to anyone in this room.’

  ‘It seemed the right thing to do. So much has happened because of the gold. I thought that somehow some good would have come from the three bars. I was wrong.’

  ‘Why would Gavin go out there? He was not an ambitious man, more laidback than most.’

  ‘His business is broke. Maybe he was desperate,’ Wilson said.

  Tremayne instinctively did not like the man. His success was well known, but he had a smugness about him.

  ‘Betty, did you tell anyone here that the gold was near to where the others had been found?’

  ‘No. Only Marcia.’

  ‘Marcia, what have you to say?’

  ‘I told no one, not even my boyfriend.’ Tremayne wanted to believe the woman. Her brother’s trial was in a week, and Tremayne knew he was down as a character witness. He hoped his statement would not be diluted by an errant sister, another murdering relative.

  Chapter 15

  It was a Friday, four days after Gavin Mitchell had died. The village fete was scheduled for that Saturday, and the preparations were well under way. There were some who had wanted to cancel it that year, on account of the murder up at the gatehouse, but the majority consensus had been to carry on regardless.

  One of those busy setting up the bunting in the field across from Tony Mitchell’s cottage decided to check why the man’s dog was barking. Inside the house, he could see the animal. He opened the front door; it came flying out and around to the back of the house.

>   The neighbour followed it. In the middle of the immaculate garden, in a bed of Tony Mitchell’s prize-winning marrows, was the body of a man. It could be no one else. The neighbour, panicking, hurried as best he could around to the front of the house, and out on to the road. ‘Help! Help!’ he shouted. Bert Clasby was an old man who should have been taking it easy. He shouted once again and collapsed to the ground.

  A vehicle stopped, looked at him and called for an ambulance. Bert Clasby was pronounced dead outside Tony Mitchell’s house. The ambulance would have two to transport.

  ‘Too late for him. You’d better call the police,’ the medic said as he examined the body in the vegetables.

  Tremayne could see the pattern yet again. One person dies, and then it’s a succession, some obviously related, others more obscure. He knew Superintendent Moulton would want answers, and a four-week detox did not help the body, any more than it helped the brain. He was starving, and neither Jean nor Yarwood were sympathetic. He was sure they were secretly meeting late at night in some hidden glade to plot the next abomination to put on his plate. He had suffered the diet shakes – supposed to satisfy the hunger but they didn’t. He had endured the broccoli, and the cauliflower, even the cabbage. What next, he wondered. He had to admit that he felt better, but seeing another Mitchell dead and surrounded by marrows did not help. He moved back to a seat near to the house.

  ‘Don’t sit there. This is a crime scene,’ Jim Hughes said. A crime scene tent was over Mitchell’s body. Out on the street, Betty had arrived with Marcia. Both wanted answers, answers neither Tremayne nor Clare could give.

  ‘We’re flying blind on this one,’ Tremayne admitted. All four had relocated to the Plough Inn and had found a table with four chairs outside.

  ‘Tony, he wasn’t like us,’ Marcia said. ‘He thought we were not up to his standard.’

  ‘Tony liked the quiet life. Why would anyone kill him?’ Betty said.

  ‘Why would anyone kill Gavin?’

  ‘Gavin was after the gold, so was someone else, but Tony had lived in the village for years. As long as he had his garden, he didn’t want any more.’

  ‘He wasn’t killed for his marrows,’ Tremayne said. He knew why Tony Mitchell had been killed. It was greed, and it was consuming everyone who came into contact with the gold, directly or indirectly. If anyone knew anything, no matter how insignificant, that person had leverage. But against who, Tremayne pondered. He looked over at Clare. He had trained her well, and he could see that she was also running the possibilities through her mind.