Burial Mound

by Phillip Strang

  She had not liked him from the first moment they had met; she liked him even less now. He was, to her, all that was wrong with the modern police force.

  And now, two women, and Inspector Roddy Wallace was squirming. He had said that his presence in the interview room was voluntary – it was not. If he had not come of his own volition, Clare knew that Fiona McAlpine would have still brought him in. In the back of a police car if necessary, in handcuffs if she could have.

  ‘You’ve been in communication with Justin Ruxton,’ Clare said.

  ‘Who?’ the sneering reply.

  It was going to be a tough interview. Wallace had many years’ experience of grilling people; he knew that non-committal answers, claiming memory loss and ignorance, worked better than being open with those who represent law and order.

  ‘Roddy, what’s the point in denying known facts?’ Fiona McAlpine said.

  ‘I’ve never met or spoken to a Ruxton.’ the inevitable reply; ignorance clearly the opening gambit.

  ‘We have proof that on three occasions you were contacted by Ruxton,’ Clare said. ‘He is, or was, in the employ of Des Wetherell, an important and influential man in the trade union movement. You have undoubtedly heard of him.’

  ‘I have, but not Ruxton. What is he anyway?’

  ‘The death of Monty Yatton was suspicious.’

  ‘It was his own damn fault. The man was a drug addict.’

  ‘The man was an acknowledged recreational user of cannabis,’ Clare said. ‘Why do you say he was a drug addict?’

  ‘He couldn’t have stopped, could he?’

  ‘A serving police officer,’ Fiona said, ‘should know the difference between a drug addict and someone who heavily indulges in drug use.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll concede the point. The man was still out of it, no idea what he was doing, burnt the place down or nearly did. Died as a result, open and shut case.’

  ‘Is that what you told Ruxton? Or is it what he paid you to ensure?’ Clare asked. Wallace was rattled, in need of a cigarette. His hands were shaking, his face was florid, sweat beads forming on his forehead.

  ‘Being open would make more sense,’ Fiona said. ‘You did not pass on information to Ruxton and by default his boss, Wetherell, out of a sense of civic duty. You did it for financial gain, and we will prove that. You either lay your cards on the table, make a deal with us, or you’ll be charged with a criminal offence.’

  ‘You could be spending time in prison with some of those you’ve put in there,’ Clare said. She had to admit to enjoying the interview. Wallace had thought he was one of Dundee’s finest police officers, while Fiona McAlpine, who did not indulge in such arrogance, clearly was.

  ‘You’ll not get Wetherell,’ Wallace said. He had leant back on his chair, the back of it straining with his weight. One of the buttons on his shirt, close to what should have been his waist, had sprung open. Clare had wanted to laugh but had turned her face away and towards her colleague. She could tell that Fiona also saw the humour in the situation.

  But Inspector Fiona McAlpine was also a serious-minded woman who regarded policing as serious business, and Roddy Wallace as a disgrace, the type of person who abuses his position of authority, the type of person who gives the police a bad name.

  ‘Are you acknowledging Wetherell?’ Clare asked. She was sitting upright, attempting to stare Wallace down, a tactic that Tremayne would use, but it was not going to work. Wallace was too big a man physically, and he was not going to indulge in posturing.

  The hate in Wallace’s face was apparent; a desire to strike out, to hit the two women, a possibility. Clare left the interview room. She returned soon after with a uniformed police constable, a larger man than Wallace, but young and fit. The constable took his place close to the door of the interview room.

  Wallace made no comment. Intimidation would not work with him, and he was aware that if the situation were reversed, if it were not an interview room, then he would have had no hesitation in ensuring that those opposite him felt the force of his wrath.

  ‘I’m acknowledging no one,’ Wallace’s eventual reply. ‘I’ve seen Wetherell on the television. He’s not the man to respond to threats.’

  ‘Neither are you, Inspector Wallace. We know what you’ve done, or should I be more accurate, failed to do.’

  ‘We’ve gone through this ad infinitum, Sergeant Yarwood.’ A subtle attempt, noticed by the two women, to belittle a lower rank. ‘I have at no time had any contact with a Justin Ruxton, a Des Wetherell. Yatton killed himself. Why don’t you stop this witch hunt and let me get back to catching criminals, something I’m particularly good at.’

  Neither woman had expected Wallace to break under pressure. But without Ruxton and no longer able to be of benefit to Wetherell, the inspector would be aware that he was a threatened species, the dishonest policeman who had been caught out. And prison to Wetherell was anathema, as he had arrested a few whose proof of guilt had been enhanced by his testimony: hard men, violent men, men with nothing to lose, men with long memories and long prison terms to serve, men who would regard retribution against Inspector Roddy Wallace as a pleasant diversion from the monotony of prison.

  ***

  Inspector Ong, a determined individual who prided himself on his thoroughness, phoned Tremayne. It was four in the morning in England.

  It was Jean who answered the phone, used to phone calls at odd hours. Tremayne still slept, his snoring only briefly halted when the phone rang.

  ‘Is Inspector Tremayne there?’ Ong asked. ‘I’m phoning from Singapore. Is that Jean?’

  She was surprised that the man knew her name. ‘He mentioned me?’

  ‘He said you would have loved it here.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘I’m afraid your husband is a stay-at-home Englishman. He’d prefer mushy peas and chips than Asian food.’

  ‘He would; I wouldn’t, and yes, I would have loved to have been there.’

  ‘Come when he has wrapped up the current case. Bring him with you, and if he complains, we can always find him an Irish Bar, a glass of Guinness to while away his hours. You and my wife can explore the shops, and we can take you to the best restaurants, the places that locals go to, not the tourist traps where they charge too much.’

  ‘The investigation’s not going too well,’ Jean said, surprised to receive the call, excited at the prospect of a trip overseas.

  ‘I’m about to make it easier for him. Is he awake?’

  ‘Not yet. Can you phone back in ten minutes?’

  Tremayne, initially cranky with Jean waking him up, soon revived.

  When Ong phoned the next time, he was sitting downstairs, a cup of tea in his hand, a slice of toast to eat.

  ‘Don’t you sleep in Singapore?’ Tremayne said when he picked up the phone.

  Inspector Ong, used to his English counterpart’s dry humour, smiled but did not comment. ‘I’ve continued checking on Richard Grantley. It wasn’t mentioned in the files, not at the time. The woman wasn’t known to us, not till later, but Grantley had had a girlfriend, the wife of another man.’

  ‘From what we know of Grantley, I can’t say I’m surprised.’

  ‘This woman, her name was Veronica Langley, the wife of a highly-influential businessman, vanished seven years ago.’

  ‘The significance?’ Tremayne asked as he ate his toast. He was wide awake now.

  ‘She reappeared five months later, or what was left of her was washed up down by the harbour. It was put down to suicide. The woman was known to have had an unhealthy relationship with prescription drugs and a fondness for alcohol.’

  ‘Suicide recorded?’

  ‘There was no reason to doubt it at the time. And no one would have been looking into the Richard Grantley case. It was a sound verdict.’

  ‘The husband?’

  ‘Distraught.’

  ‘So, Veronica Langley had been playing around with Richard Grantley. If that’s the case, what about the woman’s
husband? Did she stay with him? What was his response to her dalliance?’

  ‘She stayed with him. His response wasn’t known when Grantley took off. It wasn’t known at the time, and her relationship with Grantley was a minor issue; the money he had taken was more important, the crimes he had committed took precedence. It was just when I was running some names through the database that I made the connection.’

  ‘The husband, what about him? Where is he now?’

  ‘He returned to the UK. Anthony Langley runs an investment company, but the man was legit, well known on the social scene in Singapore, a patron of several charities, political influence.’

  ‘That doesn’t make him innocent of criminal offences.’

  ‘I know that. Veronica was invariably at his side, before and after Grantley. Always immaculately groomed, the perfect hostess.’

  ‘The prescription drugs, the alcohol?’

  ‘Behind closed doors. The affluent and influential don’t air their dirty linen in public.’

  ‘And no one knew about her being Grantley’s mistress?’

  ‘If they did, it was never reported, never mentioned. One law for the rich, another for the rest.’

  Singapore was no different to England, Tremayne could see; the affluent and well-connected could get away with anything, even murder.

  ‘Where can we find Anthony Langley?’

  ‘The company’s name is Langley Investments. I checked his website. He lives in Cornwall; his main office is in London. There’s not much more I can tell you. I’ll email the case history on the death of Veronica Langley. You can take it from there.’

  ***

  Clive Grantley made his first visit to the council offices since his misguided confession to his brother’s murder, the first visit since he had publicly announced that Kim Fairweather, his personal assistant, was his daughter, the first visit since Liz Fairweather had been in a car accident. Liz was now at his home, convalescing, a nurse hired to ensure that she received the best care that money could buy.

  Grantley was still a city councillor, if no longer the mayor. If he had been asked, he would have said that he missed the robes of office, the chance to step out of himself, to be someone more open, not the reclusive man that he had always been.

  If pressed he would have said being reclusive was an affliction from his childhood; his brother always there teasing him, mocking the stutter that had plagued him until the age of thirteen. The times he had hidden away from his brother – under the stairs, up a tree, in the garden shed – but each time there would be Richard, laughing and teasing, berating him, tears rolling down his cheeks in hilarity, beating Clive with his fists and then a piece of wood or whatever heavy object he could find.

  Their mother, sweet and loving, always seeing the best in her two sons, not chastising one for his treatment of the other, not comforting the weaker for fear of showing favouritism. Clive knew that she had been right; Richard would have only treated him worse afterwards when no one was looking. His father knew what was going on, but his solution was to tell Clive to sharpen up, hit back, give his brother a black eye. But he could never do that. It wasn’t that Richard was bigger or stronger – on the contrary, he was the smaller of the two – but Clive knew that he was a pacifist, someone who would tend to an injured bird, whereas his brother would have killed it without pity.

  He was glad that Richard was dead, had often wondered over the years what had happened to him. That last day in London, Richard had been contrite, acting the perfect brother, Clive wanting to believe it, to hope that he had turned over a new leaf, and that from then on, the two remaining members of the Grantley family could come to a truce.

  Neither man was married, and Richard was determined to stay alone, to enjoy what life had to offer, whether it was carnal or financial, preferably both; Clive because he could never trust another woman, not after Grace. He had loved her until his brother had broken the bond between man and wife.

  They had parted with a firm handshake: Richard with five thousand pounds, Clive with an overdraft.

  When he arrived at the council offices he got a pat on the back, a ‘good to see you’ from a council employee, the name of the person eluding him. Another person, a rousing cheer, a smile from Clive, a tear from Kim. She enjoyed the new-found fame, the daughter of a respected man, the daughter of a respected mother. Life was good, she knew it, and there was even a new boyfriend, an up and coming dentist, a man she might come to love.

  At the house, Kim’s mother was slowly improving. Clare was increasingly confident that new information might bring a resolution to the mystery of the death of Kim’s wayward uncle, the uncle she had never met.

  ‘You’ll soon be mayor again,’ a stout man with a walking stick said.

  ‘Let’s wait and see,’ Clive said. He hoped he would be, but he was too modest to declare that yet. If they wanted him back, he was sure that they would elect him to the position at the earliest opportunity. For the moment, he was content and even pleased that Kim was known as his daughter, yet with Liz in his house, he and she could both see that it was not going to be a happy family of three, the mother and father, the loving daughter.

  Kim was an adult, and Liz needed academia, not a man. She never had really; she knew that. In her youth, the exuberance of overactive hormones, the aid of recreational drugs. But Clive knew that her feelings for him had been real, though more emotional than physical, and that the mutual rearing of the child had given them great pleasure.

  Another person, then another person, all with the same pleasure at seeing Clive Grantley back again. He had had an excellent record of achievement when he had been the mayor: no trips to exotic locations to check out how their civic responsibilities were dealt with, no ensuring that the roads in the area where he lived, the street lighting, the cleanliness, were given preferential treatment over other areas. He knew that couldn’t be said of all the councillors, not that he intended to indulge in denigrating them to regain his position.

  A phone call from Clare caused them to leave the council offices.

  Chapter 23

  Tremayne sat back on his chair at Bemerton Road Police Station, confident that the phone call from Singapore would lead the investigation into a hitherto unexplored area. He still harboured a concern that Clive Grantley was responsible for his brother’s death, although the connection to the burial mound had to be associated with the picture on Richard Grantley’s office wall in Singapore.

  Why someone would have seen it as necessary to bury the man in a mound, and why near Stonehenge, still made no sense. He was also perturbed by Clare’s closeness to the Grantley family, which had transcended from professional to personal. To him, it was not a healthy association, in that one of them could be the murderer, another an accomplice. His sergeant had been sorely disappointed by Harry Holchester, the wounds of that not yet healed; not in him, either. The occasional nightmare sometimes disturbed his sleep; Cuthbert’s Wood at night; a group of men wearing masks, incanting chants to pagan gods, full of bloodlust; needing to kill someone for their beliefs, targeting Clare, Tremayne and the two uniforms that had been with them.

  If Clive Grantley was guilty, then he must have unusual beliefs as well. Richard Grantley had not, as far as was known, other than ultimate faith in himself.

  The dead man’s treatment of his brother, revealed in small snippets to Clare by Clive, could be enough to change an otherwise seemingly gentle person into a savage murderer. Statistically, the possibility of the abused child becoming the child abuser in adult life was strong; the neglected child becoming the perpetrator of neglect in adulthood; the child hiding in the cupboard or watching his brother kill a harmless bird was also likely to want to kill the person responsible for his misery.

  While the inspector went over the case in his mind, Clare met with the Grantleys at Clive’s house. There was a sense of contentment in the air.

  Liz was sat upright in a chair in the main room. She was now able to move freely witho
ut pain, and the nurse was to leave within a day.

  ‘I’m going back to Cambridge,’ Liz said. ‘It must have been an accident. Maybe I was neurotic about the woman that I saw.’

  Clare said nothing, not sure if Liz was right; no proof had been found to contradict her statement, although no further evidence about the death of Monty Yatton had been found either.

  Inspector Roddy Wallace’s bank account had been accessed, and his official issue laptop had shown his attempts to prejudice the minds of others that it was a clear case of accidental death.

  Wallace would be removed from the police force, and a prison term was a possibility, although the worry of bad press about a corrupt police officer might mean he would be dismissed, but no conviction.

  And now Liz was looking forward to going back to Cambridge, back to a place where she would not be protected. The prospect concerned Clare, yet she had no reason to stop her. Liz’s memory of the accident was still muddled, having no recollection of veering off the road and into the ditch.

  The murder of Richard Grantley was the reason for Clare to be at the Grantley house, although each time she visited she felt as though she belonged.

  ‘I need to ask Clive about Richard’s women,’ Clare said. The four were sitting around the room. Kim sat close to her mother. Clive had chosen a leather chair, his favourite, and Clare sat on a wooden chair, attempting to affect an air of authority.

  ‘You know about Grace,’ Clive replied. Liz pulled a face at the mention of the woman.

  ‘Have you heard of Veronica Langley? He knew her in Singapore.’

  ‘My contact with Richard was intermittent over the years. He occasionally phoned me. Most times he was drunk, wanting to regale me with stories of the good life that he was living, the women, the money, the influential friends.’

  ‘Did you believe him?’

  ‘That was Richard. Either high on life or down and despairing. Yes, I believed him.’