Burial Mound

by Phillip Strang

  Wetherell knew that a chequered history, even criminal actions, were not unknown in Westminster, but those that had erred had ensured that what could cause friction and aggravation were dealt with in advance.

  Nigel Nicholson had been one of the first to congratulate him. The two men stood in Wetherell’s office; each had a glass of brandy; each smoked a Cuban cigar of the best quality.

  ‘We have a problem,’ Nicholson said. His client’s euphoria abated slightly.

  ‘The solution?’ Wetherell asked. Worrying served no purpose, an adage that had always guided him well.

  ‘The solution has become complicated,’ Nicholson said. ‘Our Inspector Roddy Wallace, Dundee’s finest, has got himself suspended.’

  ‘Our concern?’

  ‘He will be subjected to an internal enquiry.’

  ‘Can he be traced back to us?’

  ‘Ruxton phoned him. His mobile number will be found and traced back to here.’

  ‘The solution?’

  ‘There is none, not yet. Sergeant Yarwood has been up in Dundee again. Wallace failed to ensure the robustness of the police report into the death of Monty Yatton. She has been up there ruffling feathers, making herself unpopular.’

  ‘Can it be traced back to you?’

  ‘Trace what?’

  ‘Yatton’s death,’ Wetherell said.

  ‘The man died as a result of his own stupidity,’ Nicholson said brusquely.

  Wetherell had no idea if what his friend had said was true or not; it did not concern him either way.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Liz Fairweather. She’s still a loose cannon.’

  ‘Can the cannon be silenced?’

  ‘It depends on the truth, doesn’t it? Whether she can prove a criminal act by you or not.’

  ‘There is nothing to prove. Someone else exploded a bomb. Why and who, I don’t know.’ This time it was Nicholson who did not know whether he had been told the truth or not.

  Chapter 21

  Tremayne sat in his office, still jet-lagged after the long flight from Singapore, the change in time zones. Clare could see his head drooping, his eyes closing. She thought that notwithstanding his tiredness, he looked better for the sun and heat.

  Clare’s problems, however, were more than a sleeping police inspector. A drunken phone call from Wallace late the previous night had upset her.

  ‘You’ve done me, you bitch,’ the slurred voice had said.

  It should not have concerned her, but it did. It was one of those nights in her small house in Stratford sub Castle – a moonless night, the wind rustling the leaves in the trees, an owl hooting in the distance. It was the type of night when she thought back to Harry, and the night he had died saving her.

  It had been six years since then, but she had not moved on, not sufficiently to commit to another man, and Wallace had not helped. Any other time she would have slammed the phone down, but he had caught her in a weakened state. She felt the need to defend her position.

  ‘Inspector Wallace, your phoning me will not help you,’ she said. At the bottom of her bed, her one remaining cat. On the dressing table, a photo of her and Harry in happier times.

  ‘All those years, my pension, all gone, because a snotty-nosed degree-educated woman feels the need to belittle every man. No wonder you’re on your own.’

  It was later the next day as she had watched Tremayne dozing that she remembered Wallace’s, ‘no wonder you’re on your own’.

  She had never mentioned her personal life to Wallace, nor had Tremayne. Someone was checking on her, and it was very suspicious. Her marital status would be on police records, so that wasn’t the issue, but the sneering way that he said it showed that he knew more than he should. Googling her on the internet would have revealed the history of the events that night in Avon Hill, the terrible storm, the deaths in Cuthbert’s Wood. There would have been no reference to her inability to let go and to move on with her life. That would only have come by intrusive inquiry; by Des Wetherell or one of his cohorts.

  And now, Liz Fairweather was on the phone, and she was frightened. ‘A woman has been watching me,’ she said to Clare, her voice nervous.

  ‘Stay there, I’ll get someone around to your house,’ Clare’s response. She did not phone Liz’s daughter, Kim.

  Tremayne woke from his slumber, saw his sergeant at her desk. He came over and pulled a chair from a desk behind her and sat down. ‘We’ve got plenty to be going on with,’ he said.

  ‘Liz Fairweather is frightened.’

  ‘No wonder. If Wetherell was involved in Yatton’s death, it shows the arrogance of the man, his dismissive attitude towards the police.’

  ‘He’s an important man, not so easy to take down.’

  ‘He will be if we can find anything in the files I brought back.’

  ‘You suspect that Wetherell may be tied into Richard Grantley’s death?’

  ‘We’re suspicious of him anyway. Could he have been in Singapore, could he have seen that picture?’

  To Clare, it seemed unlikely. Wetherell was wealthy now, but in his thirties when Richard Grantley had died, he had not been so prosperous, not with so much money that he would have needed to hide away vast quantities. A small flat, a late-model car, nothing more.

  Clare resumed her phone call with Liz. ‘I’ll get someone over from the local police station. Stay where you are.’

  ‘I’m heading to Salisbury. I’m in the car now.’

  ‘Call me when you get here.’

  Clare returned to Tremayne. ‘What have you brought back, anything of interest?’

  ‘Names, addresses, financial details. Most of what Grantley was doing was legitimate; most of it will be no use to us.’

  Two hours later, as Tremayne and Clare went through the files, a phone call on Clare’s mobile: a distraught Kim.

  ‘It’s my mother, she’s been in an accident.’

  Clare left Tremayne’s office and picked up her handbag, barely having time to speak to Tremayne, instead garbling out, ‘Liz, she’s crashed her car.’

  ‘Dead?’ Tremayne’s response.

  Kim, overhearing his comment, responded, ‘Not yet. She’s in Salisbury Hospital. It appears that they waited until she was near Salisbury before they ran her off the road.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘On my way to the hospital. Father is with me. She could die.’ Kim burst into tears.

  It took Clare fifteen minutes to get to the hospital. Dr Steve Warner, Clare’s former paramour, the man who had wanted to marry her, was talking to Kim and her father.

  Clare shook the doctor’s hand; it felt strange, considering that they had been lovers, but that was before she had rejected him and he had found another.

  ‘Why would they do this?’ Kim asked as she flung her arms around Clare.

  ‘Your mother’s condition?’

  ‘A broken leg, a pierced lung, concussion,’ Warner said. ‘She’ll be fine in time. Two days in here for observation and then she can be looked after at home.’

  ‘She has a home, mine,’ Clive Grantley said.

  Clare walked over to the two police officers who had been summoned to the crash site. ‘What happened? An accident or intentional?’

  ‘It’s a treacherous section of road. It’s not the first accident there, won’t be the last,’ the more senior of the two officers said.

  ‘I’ll need the crime investigation team out there.’

  ‘Apparently, you know the woman. Miss Fairweather said you did.’

  ‘A former student friend of Liz Fairweather has recently died under unusual circumstances, and Mr Grantley’s brother’s body has been discovered. One is clearly murder, the other is highly suspect. So is this accident.’

  Clare phoned Jim Hughes; his team would be at the site within the hour.

  At the hospital, Liz, semi-conscious, asked for Kim.

  The three, Kim, Clive and Clare, entered the room. Liz was heavily bandaged, a nurse standin
g by.

  ‘It was her,’ Liz said. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘We’re checking the accident scene. Can you remember any details, the car, a registration number?’ Clare asked.

  ‘It was red, or maybe it was blue. I can’t remember.’

  ‘The patient has been sedated; her recollection of details will be vague,’ the nurse said. ‘She needs rest. Please say what you need to and then leave her alone.’

  Kim touched her mother on the arm; Liz’s face was too bruised to touch.

  ‘We’ve got the best doctor in the hospital looking after you, and one of us will be here at all times,’ Kim said, dabbing her eyes with her tissue.

  Even Clare felt emotional. Monty Yatton had not fared so well, and if this was an attempted murder made to look like an accident, then the Dundee police had a lot more work to do. First Yatton, now Liz.

  Will there be any more? Clare thought.

  Clare left Kim and Clive, both sitting quietly on the chairs provided; Liz had gone back to sleep.

  Outside, Steve Warner approached her.

  ‘How are you, Clare?’ he asked. She had seen him on a few occasions over the last couple of years, but their conversations had been brief, and he had always been with his wife. She felt uncomfortable in his presence.

  ‘Fine. And you? Your family?’

  ‘They’re well, another child on the way.’

  Clare could be envious of the expected child, not of the life that his wife had chosen for herself. She knew that she was not unique, that others of her age had somehow missed the marriage and the family. She regretted the circumstance, and if she had to choose now between her career and a child, she would choose the latter.

  She often thought of Harry, of Steve. One she had loved with intensity; the other love was genuine even if it had come with doubts. It had been more natural on a romantic weekend with Steve to believe that it was love eternal, but back in the police station of a Monday, Tremayne champing at the bit, she found that the love came at a cost, a cost she couldn’t afford.

  She left the hospital, phoning Tremayne to let him know the situation, and that if it was attempted murder, then Des Wetherell, the great union man, had questions to answer.

  Instead of turning right into Salisbury, she turned left.

  Harry’s grave had been tended; a wilting flower was laid across it. Clare never knew who it was who looked after the grave, and it was three months since she had last visited. She said a few words as she always did and then left.

  Before returning to the police station she stopped by her house. The picture of Harry and her that had stood on her dressing table since his death was put into a drawer, face down.

  Steve Warner was no longer available, but she did not intend to waste any more time being melancholy, sitting on her own, waiting for love to come. She would find a man on her terms, a man who would accept that she was a serving police officer, and a child would never be neglected, and it would be loved. She had seen Kim and her mother, the love of Clive; that would do for her.

  ***

  Tremayne said nothing when Clare returned to Homicide; he had seen the expression on her face before. He did what he always did; he put her to work.

  ‘You take those files; I’ll stay with the others.’

  Clare could smell stale tobacco; she would not comment, nor tell Jean. Today was a day for reflection; a day she hoped would pass quickly.

  ‘What are we looking for?’

  ‘Names of interest. Focus on English addresses first. Think of who may have been interested in the burial mound. Was Richard Grantley fixated on ancient English history? If he was, why would someone have gone to the bother of burying him in a mound.’

  Clare took her files and worked through them, twice as fast as Tremayne, but he was slower than he had been a year before. She could see him still dozing from the jet lag, feeling the years accumulating.

  Clare entered the names and addresses into an Excel file on her laptop; Tremayne wrote them down on a piece of paper.

  Subconsciously they were both looking for Des Wetherell, the villain to them. But nothing was proven. Wallace, no longer assigned to Yatton’s death, occupied himself with alcohol. Another inspector, this time more agreeable, had been on the phone to Clare as she worked through the files.

  ‘We’re checking through Monty Yatton’s case file,’ Inspector Fiona McAlpine said. Clare imagined her to be young and eager, her enthusiasm apparent on the phone.

  ‘We’ve had another suspicious accident. This time the victim has survived.’

  ‘Smoke inhalation?’

  ‘A car ran a woman off the road, although there’s no proof it was deliberate, not yet. She’s in hospital, thankful to be alive.’

  ‘Too many car accidents up here; no doubt you have the same problem.’

  ‘We do,’ Clare said, hoping that was what it was. To put a case forward against Des Wetherell would be close to impossible. The man was smart, always distancing himself from the more fractious union disputes with management, coming in at the last minute to forge a compromise. Never to be seen up on the roof of a car rousing the workers to affirmative action, always there to talk to his members about consolidation and harmony.

  He was silver-tongued, Clare knew that, and the accident that had put Liz Fairweather in hospital appeared to be just that: a tricky section of road, balding front tyres on Liz’s car, one brake light that didn’t work.

  Jim Hughes phoned. ‘I’m here with the accident investigation team, my people as well. What colour did the driver say?’

  ‘Red or blue, but she wasn’t sure. Was the car marked?’

  ‘Not from what we can see. We’ve had a look at the CCTV, and there’s no sign of another vehicle.’

  Clare was pleased, one less headache to deal with. She phoned Kim who was still at the hospital. ‘The doctor said you and he were an item.’

  ‘He wanted something I couldn’t give him,’ Clare said, disappointed that Steve Warner had brought up the subject with Kim, understanding that the personable young woman was the type of person men like to talk to. ‘He’s married now.’

  ‘He told me. One child, another on the way. He strikes me as a decent man, the type you should be looking for.’

  ‘I’ve already found a good man,’ Clare said but did not elaborate.

  Tremayne drew Clare into his office. ‘While you’ve been chatting, I’ve found something.’

  ‘Not chatting, doing my job,’ Clare’s retort. It was part of their usual banter. The day was progressing; it was late afternoon, the jet lag had passed, and Tremayne was wide awake, Clare, who wanted an early night on account of the visit to Harry’s grave, was not.

  ‘I’ve got some names for you to check out. I’ll give it to Richard Grantley, he wasn’t a man to deal in half-measures. Some of his clients had put millions of dollars through him.’

  ‘Wetherell?’

  ‘Not yet, and what about Justin Ruxton, Wetherell’s legal eagle? Anything?’

  ‘We need to talk to him. There are no marks against his name. He’s thirty-five years of age, his only job as a lawyer with the Public Services Union. Probably honest enough, but he had made the phone call to Wallace.’

  ‘Any chance of obtaining a record of it?’

  ‘Remote. It’s best to ask him straight.’

  ‘Here or in London?’

  ‘London. Organise an interview at the local police station; talk to someone in authority.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Let him stew for a couple of days. Just make sure he’s informed and that he’s to be ready at short notice. We’ll not pin anything on Wetherell, anyway. The man’s gained more political influence, the best legal minds that money can buy.’

  Chapter 22

  The case against Des Wetherell strengthened when Clare phoned Justin Ruxton’s place of employment, the Public Services Union. The man was no longer there, and as the lady on reception advised her, ‘We don’t know where he’s gone. He
mentioned New Zealand, a relative.’

  Clare instigated an APW (all-ports warning) for Ruxton. If the man tried to exit the country, or if he had already, which seemed the most likely option, she would be notified soon enough.

  Wherever he had gone, one fact was clear: Des Wetherell and Nigel Nicholson were involved in the death of Monty Yatton and the still suspicious accident of Liz Fairweather.

  In Dundee, a dissolute and drink-sodden Roddy Wallace found himself at the police station where he had once been a proud officer. This time, though, he was on the other side of the table in the interview room.

  Clare had flown up at short notice, and she sat with Inspector Fiona McAlpine. Wallace had chosen not to have legal representation, and besides, he had not been charged with any crime, only suspended subject to an internal investigation. The man’s smell was so strong, both of body odour and tobacco, that Fiona McAlpine had sprayed the room with a powerful air freshener. It had helped a little, although it had caused Clare to sneeze, Wallace to turn up his nose at the smell of lavender.

  ‘I don’t need to answer to you,’ Wallace said. His manner was surly and contemptuous. Both of the women knew that in front of them was a misogynist and a bigot. A man who tolerated women only if they were subservient to him, not giving him commands.

  Fiona McAlpine was not as Clare had envisaged. She was in her forties with a distinctive style of clothing, tartan and tweed, her hair tied back in a bun. The sort of person who would be hiking up in the Highlands in the middle of winter, not complaining about the cold or the rain or even the snow, but driving forward against the elements, loving every moment, rallying those with her to keep up.

  ‘Roddy,’ Fiona McAlpine said, ‘your presence here today is to help us with our enquiries. It may well help you in the disciplinary hearing. A good report from us could be advantageous.’

  Wallace averted his eyes. ‘You reckon,’ he said.

  Clare could see that the man regarded his Dundee police force counterpart with disdain. She was not his kind of woman: susceptible, young, relaxed with her virtues. He had tried it on with Clare and had received a stern rebuke.