Burial Mound

by Phillip Strang

  Tremayne did not like the idea; press conferences invariably got out of hand, and the media were masters at asking intrusive questions, not allowing those presenting a chance to catch their breath, to clear their mind, to come up with a reasoned response.

  Regardless, at three in the afternoon the next day, the throng assembled at the Grantley residence. Outside the house, two uniforms ensured that the vehicles were parked far enough away; those that didn’t comply would receive a fine.

  Inside the house, the sunroom at the back had been prepared. Clive, Liz and Kim stood behind a table at one end of the room; the media had plastic chairs to sit on, recently delivered by a hire company. Clare stood to one side of the room; Tremayne was not present.

  Clive stood to speak, to a clamour from the assembled reporters. He chose to ignore them, having dealt with rowdy council meetings in the past, when a local environmental group, a disgruntled ratepayer, someone who felt the need to protest whatever the cause, would get up and interject at every opportunity, not willing to let the democratic process unfold.

  ‘Thank you for coming. My family,’ Grantley said – with the emphasis on ‘my family’, Clare noticed – ‘has asked you here to make a statement.’ Further clamouring from those in the front row, wanting to be the first to ask a question.

  ‘I have come under intense scrutiny recently due to the discovery of my brother Richard’s body. I have not seen him for fifteen years and the last time was in London. His whereabouts have been unknown to me since then, not due to a disagreement, but because he and I were fundamentally different. Richard was a gregarious, extroverted man, an adventurer, a person who was high on life or laid low by it. I am, however, intensely private and my personal life is not for general view.

  ‘I have always fulfilled my civic duties with due diligence, similarly my personal affairs. However, Richard’s death had exposed me and those I hold near and dear to intrusive scrutiny, something I do not want for myself or for those who are important to me. It is necessary for me to outline the chain of events that have brought us here today.’

  ‘Is Kim going to speak?’ a voice from the back.

  ‘Kim will speak, but unfortunately, you will need to hear me first. These are unusual circumstances that have caused me to act unwisely; circumstances which I deeply regret. Richard was, to use a term often used in error, the black sheep of the family. Our father was a serious man, and his wife, our mother, a devoted and loving mistress of the house, this house.’

  ‘Kim,’ another voice shouted out. Clare knew that press conferences, especially the more contentious ones, invariably degenerated into mob rule, the crowd waiting for the tumbrel to pass on the way to the guillotine. She wondered if Grantley was cutting his neck as well.

  ‘Why did you admit to the murder of your brother?’

  ‘To focus attention away from Liz and Kim.’

  ‘The sign of a madman,’ another voice howled out.

  ‘Pray, let me continue.’ Grantley said, his voice elevated over the hubbub in the room. ‘It is now known that Kim is our daughter, Liz’s and mine. It has not been revealed before as neither Liz nor I wanted what to many is the ideal. Liz wanted academia, I wanted solitude, to be by myself. During the intervening years, Kim has been an integral part of my life, as I have of hers. There had never been any intent to hide the fact, and every week or two I would be at Liz’s house. I am also on Kim’s birth certificate as the father.

  ‘Whatever people may make of our relationship, the three of us, we are a loving family who only wishes the best for each other. I have stood aside as the mayor of this fine city until the investigation into the death of my brother is concluded. After that, I hope to return to the city council. I have no more to say.’

  ‘Kim,’ the voices came in unison.

  Kim stood, remarkably calm, Clare thought. The first time she had had to speak at a press conference at Bemerton Road, her legs were like jelly, and she had stuttered her way through the event. But with Kim, nothing was going to phase her.

  ‘My speech will be short. My parents have always been there for me; I will always be there for them. I hope that the good people of Salisbury will respect our wish for privacy, our wish to see this current situation through to its conclusion, and for my uncle, who I never knew, the desire to see his killer brought to justice.’

  With that, the Grantleys left the room. Clare wasn’t sure that anything had been achieved. Later that day, Tremayne told her that it had been a waste of time. Des Wetherell, who sat with Nigel Nicholson to watch the press conference on the nightly news, smiled. Nicholson was sure that his work was not finished.

  ***

  A week passed by. The murder investigation had ground to a halt; the leads, weak at best, had petered out. Superintendent Moulton had informed Tremayne that he had received a phone call; Des Wetherell had registered a complaint.

  Tremayne didn’t know what for as he and Clare hadn’t harassed the man, had been polite with him. It wasn’t the first time someone had used connections to make it known that they were off limits. Moulton told him not to take any notice and to do his job. An arrest for murder was more important than a powerful man taking umbrage.

  Tremayne had to admit that he had more respect for his superintendent now that the man had stopped asking for his early retirement, although it was still a possibility. The left knee was still causing trouble; he hadn’t told Jean yet, but he would have to soon.

  Clare continued with the Grantleys – strictly speaking the Grantley and the Fairweathers. Liz Fairweather had returned to Cambridge confident that all was well in Salisbury. Clive Grantley rarely left the house, and whenever he did, it was to the acknowledgement by those that he met of what a fine fellow he was. The most vocal in their accolades would have been the most critical before, he knew that, but he remained courteous, hopeful that the curiosity would wither soon. Kim, out and about more than her father, had achieved minor celebrity status, something she had enjoyed at first but was now starting to tire of. She could see reclusive traits in her own personality, the result of her parents. Her peers wanted to be out and about, down the pub of a night, falling in love, falling out. Yet she could spend long periods of her time alone, with a book to read, a documentary on YouTube to watch.

  The research into Richard Grantley continued. Two aliases had been found for him. At one stage he had been Raymond Alston, an entrepreneur in Singapore setting up financial deals, tax avoidance schemes for those who could pay enough. That had lasted for just over five years before he had left the country eight hours in advance of the police arriving at his twentieth-floor office. The man had lived well, paid his bills when he could and then had left three hundred thousand dollars in cash in the office safe, another nine hundred thousand dollars in unpaid debts. The police officer that Tremayne had spoken to in a long-distance call reckoned that Alston, or Grantley, or whatever he called himself, had left enough cash to pay the more immediate local debts, and those that had lost nine hundred thousand weren’t likely to say anything. How much the man had smuggled out of the country, hidden in offshore bank accounts and safety deposit boxes, was unknown, but it was thought to have been in the millions.

  Richard Grantley had then popped up in Sydney, Australia, this time using a different name, and had promptly checked into the best hotel in town, a BMW in the parking lot underneath. Six months later he was gone, the car in its parking spot.

  After that, Richard Grantley’s whereabouts were unknown for six months until he reappeared in England. A brief sojourn in Salisbury when he had bought the clothes for his burial, not that he would have known that at the time.

  The period from when he had left the family home at the age of twenty-one, detoxed and fit, and his reappearance in Singapore remained a blank. No one had any information that could point to his activities during that time. It was as if the man had disappeared, which is what would have happened if he was an undercover operative. And if that was the case, Tremayne knew that the reco
rds would remain hidden, whether the man was dead or not.

  The situation in Singapore brought into play another line of enquiry. If Richard Grantley had absconded with money that belonged to high rollers with plenty of cash and a wish to keep it hidden, then those same people could either be corrupt politicians or criminals.

  Richard Grantley, it appeared, was not just an adventurer, he was a risk taker, and such people fly close to the sun, only to get their wings burnt.

  Superintendent Moulton had argued that as much could be achieved with video conferencing and emails as could by travelling to Singapore. Tremayne, never much of a traveller, argued to the contrary. ‘I need to see the place, his office, where he lived. Find out who he could have cheated. I can’t do that glued to this police station.’

  Two days later, Tremayne, the envy of the police station, and in the face of Jean’s ire – she was not going – boarded a Singapore Airlines A380 at Heathrow Airport.

  Chapter 19

  Des Wetherell seemed to be constantly on the television. Every time that Clare switched it on, there he was: at his most obsequious, his most gushing, his most sensible.

  Clare had to admit that the man was good and the charisma that she had encountered when she and Tremayne had met him that one time was apparent. It did not, however, regardless of the public perception of the man as someone who had made mistakes in his youth, absolve him from the polling station bombing nor the death of Monty Yatton.

  Clare had driven Tremayne to London Heathrow; his instruction to her to focus on Monty Yatton’s death. As he had said, ‘I’ve met a few bent coppers in my time. Roddy Wallace fits the stereotype. As long as he’s got the easy life, he’s not worried if the man was murdered or not.’

  It matched Clare’s opinion of the man. Wallace had been on the phone twice to her; once to relay the findings from the crime scene investigators, and that he was sending down the reports from Pathology and Forensics and the second time to find out how she was, whether she was coming back up to Dundee in the near future, and how about a night out together.

  Clare had remained polite, not out of deference to his rank, nor on account of the wedding ring on his left hand, but because a return to his city was very possible.

  It was Jim Hughes, Salisbury’s senior crime scene investigator, who had spotted it; Stuart Collins, the forensic pathologist, who concurred.

  ‘Judging by the amount of alcohol in the man’s system and the cannabis, the question remains, did he or did he not have the ability to walk to the kitchen, put the frying pan on the stove, pour in some oil, and light the gas flame,’ Collins said. ‘Professionally, I’m not disputing their findings up north, but it’s a question that should have been asked by the investigating officer. What was his name?’ Collins asked.

  ‘Inspector Roddy Wallace,’ Clare’s reply.

  ‘Yatton’s death is important to you, is it?’

  ‘It’s a possible link to the death of Richard Grantley.’

  ‘Then you’ll need to ask the question.’

  ‘That’s what I intend to do.’

  ‘The surf and sun for Tremayne; the rain and cold for you,’ Jim Hughes said. ‘It doesn’t seem to be a fair trade.’

  ‘There’s no surf in Singapore, and he’ll hate the heat. An old raincoat, the chance to complain about the weather suits him more.’

  Wallace took the phone call from Clare badly. When she had returned to Homicide and made the call he had initially been his smarmy self, but when the reason for the call was explained, his attitude changed.

  ‘We’re professionals up here.’ Wallace’s defence of his position. Clare imagined that his ruddy complexion was getting ruddier by the second.

  ‘It’s a line of enquiry, not a comment on your professional competency,’ Clare said diplomatically. She didn’t need a battle royal on her arrival in Dundee. ‘There’s a possibility that Yatton couldn’t make it to the kitchen and that he was comatose before that. If that’s the case, then it’s not death by misadventure. It’s an open conclusion, the possibility of an intentional act concealed as an accident.’

  ‘They’ll not take kindly to your disputing their findings.’

  ‘That’s as may be. I’ll be there tomorrow in the afternoon. I’ve booked into the Premier Inn again.’

  The phone call ended badly, with Clare breathing a sigh of relief afterwards and helping herself to a cup of coffee from the machine in the corner.

  A text message from Tremayne: hot as hell, wish you were here instead of me.

  Clare had to agree with him. Where she was heading was another kind of hell. No serving police officer, no pathologist or forensic scientist, appreciates their professionalism being questioned. Superintendent Moulton had advised taking a more senior officer from another department to Scotland with her, but she declined. She was going to do this on her own, Wallace or no Wallace intruding. And if the man made an inappropriate comment or gesture, she knew where her knee was going.

  ***

  Tremayne, his body clock out of sync with the time difference from the UK, couldn’t sleep. It was evening where he was, and Clare was preparing to leave for the airport.

  The text message from Tremayne earlier had been unexpected; in fact, it was the first time he had ever sent one. The phone call was not.

  Clare would have used Skype or Viber for the call, but her senior was not computer savvy. For him, it was a phone call.

  ‘How are you?’ Clare asked.

  ‘Fine, now,’ Tremayne shouted back. Clare felt like telling him that he didn’t need to shout; the line was clear.

  ‘We’ve had developments.’

  ‘When I’m not there. What kind of developments?’

  ‘Jim Hughes and Stuart Collins reckon the final report on Yatton’s death is not robust. It’s a possibility that Yatton wasn’t in the kitchen; too far out of it to have started the fire.’

  ‘Proven?’

  ‘Not proven and probably can’t be, but the report needs to be changed. I’m on my way back to Dundee.’

  ‘Wallace?’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll be there with a bouquet of flowers for me, not this time.’

  ‘Watch him. He’s the sort that causes trouble, and if he tries any fancy footwork, get on to Moulton.’

  ‘And you? How’s Singapore?’

  ‘At Changi Airport you could have fried eggs on the pavement, and the humidity is intense.’

  ‘Jean?’

  ‘She’s fine now, upset that she couldn’t come.’

  ‘The local police?’

  ‘I’ve been assigned an Inspector Ong. He picked me up at the airport. Everyone speaks English.’

  ‘You need to travel more. Of course they do. What’s the plan?’

  ‘We’ll check out where Grantley’s been, who he may have cheated. Inspector Ong reckons if some of those he cheated had found him, then his life wouldn’t have been worth living.’

  ‘Criminal elements?’

  ‘Drug money, gangsters, corrupt politicians. The sort of people you and I thankfully don’t meet too often.’

  After the brief phone conversation, Clare left her house and drove to Southampton Airport, this time without having to deviate to pick up Tremayne.

  Upon arrival in Edinburgh, she picked up a rental and drove to Dundee, not needing the GPS this time to find the Premier Inn. Wallace, who had known of her arrival time, was not at the hotel; she found him thirty-five minutes later in his office at Dundee Police Station on West Bell Street.

  ‘You made it, I see,’ Wallace’s first words. He shook Clare’s hand, begrudgingly she thought.

  ‘I’m not here to dispute the findings, just to ask for them to be re-evaluated.’

  ‘Yarwood,’ no longer Clare or Sergeant, ‘we pride ourselves on our professionalism. Your coming here from down south has upset a few. Don’t expect to find too many smiling faces around here.’

  Clare looked Wallace in the face. ‘I’m not here for a good time. I’m here
because a man, possibly two, have been killed, and Yatton indirectly may or may not be involved. We need to explore all possibilities, and if you or anyone else thinks they’re going to find me a pushover, a piece of fluff, then they’ll be severely disappointed. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘You can’t talk to a superior officer like that,’ said Wallace, his face red, his hands sweaty.

  ‘I have said nothing wrong, nothing that Inspector Tremayne wouldn’t agree with. Now, are we clear? Are you going to assist me or do I need to find someone else?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do my job.’

  ‘Very good. First the report. Why wasn’t the possibility of a third party in that flat considered?’

  ‘No evidence from the crime scene investigators,’ Wallace replied. He was calmer now, careful what he said. Clare knew that by the evening he’d be back to his usual obnoxious self, trying to get her to have a drink with him, to ignore the wedding ring which he was no longer wearing, the imprint on his finger still visible.

  ‘No evidence of that fact is still not a reason not to mention the possibility.’

  Wallace said no more and raised himself from his chair. ‘You’ll want to talk to the pathologist,’ he said. He brushed against Clare as he left the office. His actions were hostile, his manner dismissive, his anger palpable. Tremayne had warned her to be careful with the man, treat him with kid gloves, let him shoot himself in the foot.

  Superintendent Moulton, unbeknown to Clare and Tremayne, had already been onto his counterpart in Dundee and found out that Inspector Roddy Wallace was a sloppy police officer. More than one villain walked the streets due to a failure of the prosecution to prove their case; the testimony of Wallace under oath devalued by the defence.

  Moulton chose not to tell Clare what he had found out. He still intended her to reach inspector rank within the next year, Homicide the best place for someone of her capabilities, someone who had been mentored by Tremayne. If she could handle the situation in Dundee on her own, then he was sure she was the right person to put forward on Tremayne’s retirement. He had seen the inspector dragging his leg, and although he’d also seen the curtailing of smoking, the healthier look in the man’s face, it was an aberration, Moulton knew. Tremayne was on the way out, Clare Yarwood’s star was in the elevation.