by Nicola Ford
Outside in the corridor, West handed her another Manila folder. She opened it. It contained a single document with an email paperclipped to the front.
‘Thanks, Tom.’
Back in the interview room she resumed her seat. She spent a few minutes skimming through the report West had handed her.
Gemma Bates finally lost patience. Pointing to her watch, she said, ‘Time’s nearly up, DI Treen.’
Sally pulled herself upright in her chair. ‘So it would seem, Ms Bates.’ She turned to Damian Kelly. ‘Time’s not the only thing that’s running out, Mr Kelly. It looks like your luck’s run out too. We’ve just got the forensics results from the murder scene through from the lab and your prints are all over Jack Tyler’s flat.’
Kelly sounded distraught. ‘Of course they are. I told you I was there. I all but carried him back to his flat. And when I last saw Jack Tyler he might have been in a state, but he was snoring like a good ’un on the sofa in his living room.’
Sally said, ‘It took you long enough to tell us, though, didn’t it, Mr Kelly. And that’s not how we found him. And it doesn’t explain why your fingerprints were also all over Jack’s empty wallet. Inside and out.’
Kelly looked momentarily confused. ‘Look, I’ve no idea how my fingerprints got onto Jack’s wallet. But if you’re suggesting I killed Jack Tyler for his money you’re barking up the wrong tree. The bloke was skint. I already told you, I’d been paying for his drinks all night in the pub.’ He sat distractedly, shaking his head. ‘I don’t understand it. I don’t … Shit! I remember now.’ He looked up at Sally. The desperation in his eyes clear to see. ‘When we got to the lobby of Jack’s block of flats we couldn’t get in. You need one of those card thingies. Jack was out of it, so I had to go through his pockets to see if he had it on him. I found it in his wallet.’
Sally stood up.
He was pleading with her now. ‘That’s why my prints are on his wallet.’
Sally said, ‘One too many changes of story, I’m afraid, Mr Kelly.’ She paused. ‘Damian Kelly, I’m charging you with the murder of Jack Tyler. PC Davies here will take you down to see the custody sergeant.’
It had been a week now since Clare had been to see Mark Stone. And the seven days had passed entirely without incident aside from a brief visit from the Western Daily Press, who wanted to run a story about the discovery of the shrine. Even the weather had been on their side. There’d been no more torrential downpours. And though the sun hadn’t shone, the thick grey cloud that hung over the site did at least make taking the site photographs a little easier.
At the back of her mind she still couldn’t help feeling anxious about what Crabby had told them. But she was beginning to wonder if Stone had had a point. She might have developed a soft spot for Crabby but no one could doubt that he had what might politely be described as a sideways take on reality at times.
She’d spent much of the first two nights after her excursion to Stroud lying awake worrying about what she could do to make someone take the situation seriously. Then, as she lay there tossing and turning, she realised that she only had Crabby and Sheila Foggarty’s word for the fact that Beth had been opposed to the housing development. And Beth, like Clare and the Hart Unit, were being paid by Paul Marshall.
What’s more, Clare also only had Crabby’s word that Beth had claimed to have found something that proved the importance of the site. No one else seemed to know anything about it. Which, when she thought about it, seemed a curious state of affairs, given that Beth had previously spent so much time trying to convince the world that Bailsgrove had been a cult centre in the Iron Age. And even if Beth had made a big discovery, if she hadn’t actually told anyone other than Crabby then why would anyone have had a reason for killing her? The more she thought about it, the less sense it all made.
So she’d decided to put Crabby’s fantasies about dead hares behind her and concentrate firmly on the one thing she had no doubt Beth Kinsella would have given anything to be able to do – excavate Bailsgrove’s Iron Age temple.
To that end she and Jo now found themselves working on the foundation trench of what David had described as the ‘holy of holies’ or, as Malcolm had christened it, the ‘ho ho ho’. Clare had tried pointing out that there was a ‘ho’ too many in there, but by then it was too late. The name had stuck. She’d been tempted to mention that the name was more than a little irreverent given the nature of the site. But in the end she’d decided it was best to keep her thoughts to herself for fear of being labelled the site killjoy.
Jo was trowelling her way through a thick black layer in the top of the foundation trench. ‘This stuff’s solid charcoal.’
Clare got up from the bucket she was perching on by the side of the cutting and peered down. ‘Looks as if we know what the wall of the ho ho ho was made of, then.’
Jo nodded. ‘Uh huh. Split planks. And someone did a real thorough job of burning it down.’
Clare said, ‘Makes you wonder if it was deliberate.’
Jo laughed. ‘Those pesky Romans again.’
Clare said, ‘Maybe. But if it was, they did us a favour. We should be able to get some decent radio carbon samples from that lot. I’ll pop down to the office and get some tin foil to wrap the samples in.’
As Clare made her way downhill she could see that Malcolm was standing just outside the office door talking to someone. Thickset and wearing dark suit trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, even standing with his back to her she could tell that whoever it was meant business. And he and Malcolm appeared to be deep in conversation.
As she drew closer she called out, ‘Can I help you?’
The man spun round. It was Paul Marshall. He was waving a copy of a newspaper at her. It took her only seconds to recognise it as yesterday’s copy of the Western Daily Press. She had the same edition sitting on the Portakabin desk, waiting for her to cut out the temple article for the team noticeboard.
‘Oh yes, you can. You can tell me what the fuck you think you’re playing at.’
‘I don’t quite follow you, Mr Marshall.’
‘Well, you bloody well should. I thought I’d stopped all of this sort of bullshit when I spoke to your boss about the last lot of bollocks you splashed all over the media. But apparently I didn’t make myself clear.’ He walked forward until he was standing toe to toe with her. ‘I won’t have it. I won’t take any more of this shit from you.’ He threw the newspaper to the floor.
Clare stepped back and took a deep breath, trying to control her escalating heartbeat. ‘If you’d like to come into my office, I’d be happy to discuss any concerns you might have, Mr Marshall.’
His face was on fire. He looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
‘Your office!’ He bellowed. ‘You’ve got a sodding nerve. I own this site. All of it. Do you hear me? And I won’t have anyone trying to tell me where I can and can’t go on my own property.’
Clare said, ‘I was just trying to suggest we might be more comfortable sitting down talking this through like two reasonable human beings.’
She could see an embarrassed Malcolm edging his way round Marshall and creeping back to the cutting.
Marshall jabbed a finger at her. ‘I’ll tell you what would make me feel more comfortable. You stopping shit-stirring and starting to do the job I’m paying you for.’
Clare drew in a deep breath. She fervently hoped she looked a whole lot more directorial than she was feeling right now.
‘If by “shit-stirring” you mean speaking to the press about what we’ve discovered on the site, I’d have thought you would welcome the publicity. We do credit Marshall Construction as funders in the article.’
‘I should sodding well hope so. I’m paying your wages, girlie, and don’t you forget it. And let’s get one thing straight: I’m not paying you to do my PR for me. I’m paying you to clear this site and bugger off to whatever godforsaken hole in Wiltshire you lot crawled out of.’
He bent his head down towards her until he was so close she could smell stale wine and garlic on his breath. ‘Understand?’
Clare never got the chance to reply. She heard the sound of pounding feet careering down the slope behind her and then a hand appeared, it seemed out of nowhere, and gripped Marshall firmly by the arm.
Taking in huge gulps of Cotswold air, clearly out of breath, Neil said, ‘Mr Marshall, I think Clare here’s got the picture, don’t you? We wouldn’t want any more misunderstandings, now would we?’
A seemingly stunned Marshall opened his mouth as if to speak, then apparently thinking better of it, closed it again. Neil guided Marshall, still cursing under his breath, towards where his Audi was parked next to the field entrance. Clare couldn’t hear what Neil was saying, but he was still talking to Marshall. And whatever he was saying seemed to be working. With a little cajoling from Neil, Marshall eventually climbed into his car. As Marshall spun the car round he lowered his window and yelled, ‘You mark my words. I expect to be bringing my diggers onto site in a fortnight. Unless you lot are done by then I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
Neil walked back over towards the site office. ‘Are you alright?’
‘Fine. At least I think so. How did you manage that?’
‘Marshall’s like a fire. The more fuel you throw on him, the higher the flames get.’ He hesitated. ‘And I don’t think he likes women much. He was never too keen on Beth either.’
‘Well, however you did it, thank you, Neil.’ She remembered his conversation on the phone with Sadie. Maybe there was something she could do to help. ‘I think you’ve just earned yourself a bonus.’
Was he blushing? She hadn’t meant to embarrass him.
He shook his head, his eyes cast to the floor. ‘Thanks, Clare. But I know the unit’s strapped for cash. You can buy me a pint if you want to. I was just doing my job.’ Then, picking his head up, he said, ‘You know you ought to go careful around Marshall.’
Clare asked, ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Apart from what you saw just then?’
‘That was just schoolyard bully stuff.’
He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. Some schoolyard bullies turn into full-on thugs. I know what he’s like; I’ve dealt with him before.’
‘When Beth was running the dig, you mean?’
Neil said, ‘Not just then. On other sites too. He’s a nasty piece of work.’ He looked her straight in the eye. ‘I’m serious, Clare. You don’t want to cause him any more trouble than you have to.’
‘We’ve got a nationally important site here, Neil. There’s only a handful of these things known anywhere. Are you trying to tell me I should do some sort of botch job on it just to get out of Marshall’s hair more quickly?’
Neil said, ‘No. I’m just saying this isn’t a research project, Clare. It’s a commercial excavation. Nobody would blame you for just doing what’s needed to get by.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘The way I see it, if Neil hadn’t intervened you would’ve found yourself in a whole heap of trouble.’ Jo handed Clare her glass of Pinot and deposited herself and her rum and Coke in the corner seat opposite her.
It had been a long and difficult day and both women had been glad to retreat to the sanctuary of the King’s Arms at the end of it.
‘Like I told Neil, Marshall is just a schoolyard bully. He’s all bark and no bite.’
Jo tucked a stray strand of her unruly blonde hair behind her ear. ‘Are you sure about that, Clare? He looked pretty darn serious from where I was standing.’
Clare shook her head. ‘He’s all bluster. And I’m damned if I’m going to do what Neil suggests and trash the site just to placate Marshall.’
Jo said, ‘Now hang on a minute, Clare. From what you told me that’s not exactly what Neil was suggesting, is it? From where I’m sitting I’d say he was just trying to help out. And you’ve seen for yourself what Neil’s like at the moment. I don’t know what’s eating at him, but he’s been on a real downer the last couple of weeks.’
Jo opened a packet of cheese and onion crisps and proffered one to Clare.
Clare shook her head and instead took a sip of her Pinot. ‘I think I might know what the problem is.’
‘Oh.’
‘He’s having trouble on the home front. I heard him on the phone the other day having a row with Sadie.’
Jo asked, ‘What about?’
‘Money. Or rather the lack of it.’
Jo said, ‘Ah, the age-old problem. Being a shovel bum might make you happy, but it’s never gonna make you rich.’
‘Only in this case it doesn’t seem to be making him happy either.’
‘It’s tough for all of us at times. However much we love what we do.’
Clare added, ‘And Neil’s got no job security. When he finishes here, who knows when he’ll next pick up any work. And with a young baby …’
Jo said, ‘Well, there you go, that accounts for it.’ Jo paused. ‘And don’t forget Beth. He’d known her for years. I know he doesn’t show it, but he must have been pretty freaked about what happened.’
‘True. He doesn’t like to talk about it. But Beth’s death does seem to have had a big impact on him.’
Jo said, ‘And not just Neil. I think it hit all of them pretty hard. I had Malc down as a hard-bitten, badass digger, but when I tried talking to him about Beth he just walked away. He seemed real cut up about it.’
Clare twirled the stem of her wine glass. ‘When I went to see Stuart Craig a few weeks back he reckoned Neil had a thing for Beth.’
Jo said, ‘No way! But she was way older than Neil.’
‘Since when did that make a difference?’
‘You’ve got a point. And there’s no denying, Beth Kinsella was a good-looking woman. And we all have our fantasies, I guess.’
Clare gave her a quizzical look.
Jo felt herself blush. Damn! ‘I’m just saying. It doesn’t mean there was anything going on. Maybe he just admired her from afar.’
‘I didn’t know you were such an old romantic, Dr Death.’
Jo plucked a beer mat from the table and slapped Clare across the back of her hand with it. ‘Don’t start with the Dr Death crap, you! I get enough of it from the students. Anyhow, either way it would explain why he was so cut up about Beth’s death. And even if he didn’t have a thing for her, she was his boss. And if something happened to David I’m guessing you’d be kind of cut up about it.’
This time it was Clare’s turn to blush. But she swiftly changed the subject. ‘The other thing Stuart Craig told me was that Beth had been sacked by Sheffield because she was an obsessive. According to Craig, their whole lives had been taken over by her obsession with Celtic death and sacrifice. He more or less said it was why they split up in the end too.’
Jo said, ‘Well, she certainly seems to have been pretty single-minded about it.’
Clare leant forward. ‘That’s just it, Jo. Yes, she was single-minded, but everybody thought she was a fruitcake when she was going around shouting about Bailsgrove being an Iron Age temple. And now we know that’s exactly what it is. Beth Kinsella was right. And in my book that doesn’t make her an obsessive fantasist. It makes her a bloody good archaeologist. And if that was the case, why would she kill herself?’
There was no way Jo would ever tell her friend as much but she looked as if she’d aged ten years since she’d taken on the Bailsgrove dig. And she was worried about her.
She lowered her voice. ‘Look, Clare, none of us can get inside one another’s heads. No one is ever going to know what Beth Kinsella was thinking when she took her own life.’
‘If she took her own life.’
‘Don’t go there, Clare! I thought we’d talked about this. Crabby’s one of the good guys. And I like the dude as much as you do. But there’s not a scrap of evidence that Beth’s death was anything other than exactly what it looks like – a suicide.’
Clare made no
reply. And Jo watched as she sat silently twirling the stem of her wine glass between her fingers, and staring fixedly into what remained of its contents.
Jo said, ‘OK, Clare, I know you. There’s something you’re not telling me. What gives?’
Clare let out a long slow breath. ‘OK. But if I tell you, you’ve got to promise you won’t get angry with me. I did something really stupid, when I went to see Mark Stone. Something that could’ve landed Crabby in hot water with the police.’
‘Hey, none of us like to have our ideas dismissed. But how much harm can it have done telling Stone about what Crabby said about Beth?’
Clare shook her head, but still didn’t look up. ‘It’s not that.’
‘What then?’
‘Promise me you won’t get angry?’
Jo raised her hands in mock surrender. ‘I promise. Now just tell me what happened.’
‘I told him about what Margaret and I found out when we went to meet that antiquities dealer.’
In a stage whisper, Jo said, ‘You did what? What the hell were you thinking of, Clare?’ She leant in towards Clare and lowered her voice. ‘You know Crabby planted those finds.’
Clare looked up at her friend, ‘Yes, of course. And to be honest I don’t know why I said it. I was just so pissed off with Mark. I suppose I wanted him to take me seriously for once.’
‘So you figured it was worth risking getting Crabby caught up in a police investigation because you thought some guy wasn’t paying you enough attention. Is that what you’re telling me?’
‘It wasn’t like that. You weren’t there, Jo. He was so patronising. I was sick to death of the way he always dismisses everything I say out of hand. I wanted to show him I wasn’t just some silly little woman who could be ignored. I thought if I could face him down with the evidence, I could show him he’d been wrong to just disregard what happened with the nighthawks. Then he’d have to sit up and take notice. And I didn’t want the dealer to just get away with it. Who knows what other sites he and his mates are out there wrecking right now.’