BURIED CRIMES: a gripping detective thriller full of twists and turns (12 page)

Chapter 17: A Happy Little Girl

Tuesday, week 2

Surprisingly, given the previous day’s aggravations, the morning’s briefing proved to be very fruitful. It was largely based upon Rae’s detailed findings about the residents of Finch Cottage.

‘I’ve traced them back to 1980,’ she began. She pinned a flow chart to the board. ‘We start with Bill and Angela McKenzie, two school teachers. I think they may have owned the property, but I haven’t confirmed it yet. They moved in during 1980 and lived there until September 1992. They then moved to Poole as far as I can tell. I have a probable address for them, in Poole, but only found it this morning, so I haven’t contacted them yet. That will be my next job.’

‘That could be before the dates we’re looking at for the children,’ Barry said. ‘We still think about twenty years, so they would have left before that. Don’t you think, ma’am?’

‘It’s not that clear. There could be a leeway of up to five years either way, certainly until we hear from the forensic dating experts,’ Sophie responded. ‘So they stay in the picture. Do we know anything about them, Rae?’

‘Not yet, but it will happen.’ She pushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear and continued. ‘The next resident was Anthony Scrivener. He was Deputy Governor at the prison for eighteen months and lived at Finch Cottage for most of that time. I can’t find any mention of a wife, partner or housemate, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. He was the only person on the voters’ role, though. I think he moved out in October 1994. It looks as though the place might have been empty between the McKenzies moving out and Scrivener moving in, a period of about six months. Maybe there were some short-term residents, but I haven’t found records of any yet.

‘The next people to live there were called Camberwell, but the details are very vague. There’s no record of first names, just the initial P. It’s possible he, she or they were there for longer than the six months I have for them, but that’s based on a single record only, so it may be wrong.

‘After that, things get much clearer. Jessica and Bob Hart had the place for two and a half years, from May 1996 until November 1998. I’ve spoken to Mrs Hart and we know they rented. They were followed by two nurses, Andrew Lloyd and Verity Smith. They were in the house for ten years, from January 2000 to July 2009. They still work at the hospital and have confirmed that they rented the house. They’re still together as a couple and have a house of their own now. Antonio Crella, a photographer, moved in during September 2009 and stayed there for a year, moving out in late August 2010. He was immediately followed by Hester Williamson, a lecturer in animal husbandry at the local agricultural college. She remained for two and a half years, moving out in March 2013. We know the next residents, the Freeman family. They moved in six months later. And that’s it.’

‘Thanks, Rae,’ Sophie said. ‘Let’s talk this through before we move on. It’s always possible, I suppose, that the children were buried during one of the periods when the house was empty. Maybe someone deliberately chose it because it was vacant. But if so, why put a shrub on top of the grave? It acts as a kind of marker in a way, so I’m inclined to think that it was part of the burial. If so, it was more likely to have taken place when the house was occupied, and carried out by whoever lived there. Anyone want to add anything?’

Marsh said, ‘these are all probabilities. What you’re saying is fine as long as we’re aware that there might be other explanations for the burial.’ ‘I agree, but it gives us a start. So the people we are interested in are the McKenzies, Scrivener and Camberwell. Their occupancies span the period we’re looking at. Once we get to the Harts, the odds start changing.’ She stopped.

‘Are you okay, ma’am?’ Marsh asked.

‘Yes, yes. It’s the name Camberwell. It rings a bell somewhere in my head, some vague memory from decades ago. Can you go on, Rae, please? I’m listening.’

‘Okay. The information I have about the owners is sparse. The McKenzies were owner occupiers. When they moved, the house was sold to a Dorothy Kitson who, it seems, never lived there. It’s possible that she was only a joint owner for some of the time. It must have been her who sold it to the Freemans last year.’

Marsh sat forward. ‘So this Dorothy Kitson was either the sole or part owner for all of the period we’re interested in?’

‘It would seem so. But I don’t have dates at the moment and, as I said, there’s no evidence that she ever lived there.’

Sophie was only half listening. ‘Excuse me a minute,’ she said. She took her mobile phone from her bag and made a call.

‘Hi, Mum. Can you talk? Fine. The name Camberwell. Why should it seem vaguely familiar to me? Why do I somehow connect it with you?’ She listened, ended the call and then sat, drumming her fingers on the desktop. Finally she announced, ‘Doctor Li Hua Camberwell was a GP in a medical practice next to my mother’s in Bristol. According to my mother, she died in a car crash more than twenty-five years ago. She was originally from Hong Kong.’ She took a breath. ‘I think it’s possible that we’ve just made a breakthrough, though I’m not quite sure what it is.’

‘If it was an RTA, there’ll be a record of it, won’t there?’ Marsh said. ‘Do you think we should find out the details? From the sound of it, she could have died at about the same time as the children. Do you want me to start now?’

‘Yes. And, Rae, you get the details fleshed out, as far as you can, about these tenants and owners. But, before you do, contact that retired headteacher. See if he remembers the children’s surname. I imagine he must have been mulling it over since you saw him last week. Don’t give him the name Camberwell before he has the chance to come up with a name himself, but try it out on him if he doesn’t remember. I’ll see what I can find out about the doctor. Maybe after ten days of slog, when we seemed to get nowhere, our work has paid off. Let’s meet again early afternoon.’

Sophie noticed a sudden look of horror appear on Rae’s face.

‘What is it, Rae?’

‘Ma’am! I owe you such an apology. I feel awful about it. It was when you mentioned the headteacher. I suddenly remembered something he mentioned on Thursday. His name is George Bramshaw, and he thinks he might have taught you in Bristol when you were at primary school. I’m so sorry. I should have mentioned it on Friday but it slipped my mind.’ Rae was blushing furiously.

‘George Bramshaw? My goodness! Yes, I was nine or ten. I’m flattered he remembers me still.’

‘He said he was only a couple of years out of college, ma’am.’

‘I think I probably had a crush on him. Either that or I used him as a substitute father. Do you mind if I take this contact, Rae? I can’t believe he still remembers me.’ She checked the wall clock. ‘I wonder? Call him, Rae, and ask him if he’ll be in later this morning. Don’t tell him it’ll be me going to see him.’

* * *

At eleven o’clock Sophie pulled up outside the small bungalow in Salisbury. If Rae’s prediction was accurate, the owner would be sitting in a window seat looking out at the road, ready and waiting. Sophie paused before opening the car door. Yet another influential figure from her past who’d helped her become the person she was, yet so long ago as to almost be in another life. Of course she had memories of that time. There was even a photo of her, sitting on a swing in the local park wearing pink trousers and T-shirt, and white sandals. It was her mother’s favourite. It must have signified something important, although Sophie couldn’t remember exactly what. Her birthday? It was so, so long ago. She’d been a small girl growing up without a father; a lonely, sometimes solitary child. No wonder I’ve turned out the way I have, she thought. But people like Mr Bramshaw had filled her mind with a longing for knowledge and understanding. He’d been a hero to her, really.

She checked her hair in the rear-view mirror, took her bag from the passenger seat, opened the door and swung her legs out. She smoothed down her skirt, stood and opened the gate. She could feel him watching. There he was, opening the door while she was still halfway down the path. I wonder what’s going through his mind, she thought. Is he as nervous as me? He shouldn’t be; he must meet ex-pupils often, surely?

‘Well,’ George said. ‘I wondered. Remembering the kind of person you were, even at the age of ten, I thought you might come yourself. But then I told myself, no, she’ll be too busy.’

‘As you see, I did come after all. I’m in the process of re-discovering myself and couldn’t miss this opportunity.’

He held out his hand, but Sophie came forward and gave him a hug. ‘You deserve better than a handshake,’ she said. ‘You have no idea how much the little girl I used to be hung on your every word. I never felt the same for any other teacher. By the time I started secondary school, boys had entered the equation and things became more complicated.’

He smiled. ‘You’d better come in. Coffee is ready, or tea if you’d prefer it. I want to hear your life story. Short version, of course.’

She followed him into the house. ‘Coffee, please. Rae was complimentary about your chocolate biscuits, so I hope you still have some left. We’d finished the ones you sent by the next day.’

He led her into the sitting room. A tray of cups, plates and biscuits sat on a low table with a jug of coffee beside them. He poured two cups. ‘Complimentary, eh? Did you choose that adjective deliberately?’

She sat in one of the easy chairs. ‘You know I did. I still remember your lesson on pairs of words that can be easily confused. Homonyms? Which and witch. Villain and villein. Revue and review. Didn’t you ask us to draw the witch and the villain? I think you put my effort up on the wall.’

‘I expect the complimentary and complementary was just for you. A bit too hard for most ten-year-olds. So what happened after you left primary school?’

‘I didn’t change very much. I was still a swot, according to most of my friends. I became a bit wild in my middle teenage years.’

‘Just a bit?’

‘Well, that’s what I’ve always told my family. I think my mother suspects, but she’s never asked for the lurid details. To be honest, the wild spell didn’t last long. I found it all a bit distasteful.’

He laughed. ‘That doesn’t surprise me. You always were very particular.’

‘Anyway, I kept working hard through it all, and I went to Oxford to study for a law degree.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? You did that well? But I shouldn’t be surprised. I could see you had real potential, and your mother was very supportive, if I remember rightly. And then you joined the police?’

‘Yes. Weird, isn’t it? I went on the fast-track route, but still had to start off as an ordinary bobby on the beat.’

‘Where was that?’

‘London. I met my husband while we were at university in Oxford, and he got a job teaching in a big West End school. I moved up through the ranks, but took some time off to have my family, and to do a masters degree. I went back and got a promotion to detective sergeant, then we moved to the Midlands where I was a DI in a big task force. The move to Dorset a couple of years ago suited us both.’

He nodded and sipped some coffee. ‘But earlier you made a reference to re-discovering yourself. The way you said it sounded serious.’

Sophie took another sip of coffee. ‘You might not have known it but there were just the two of us at home, me and my mum. No father. I always thought he had run out on my mum when he discovered she was pregnant. I don’t know whether you can imagine how much that affected me. I rarely talked about it with mum because I could see the pain it caused, but I grew up secretly despising him, and that never changed, even when I grew up. If anything the hatred grew, and it really wasn’t good for me. I had a loving husband, two beautiful and talented daughters, yet I had this cold, hard kernel of hate deep within me. Then, just last year, I discovered what had really happened to him. He’d been murdered by a criminal gang just because he’d happened to witness them committing a crime. They dumped his body down an old disused mineshaft. It was only found twelve months ago. We discovered who did it and he’ll stand trial later this year.’ She sipped her coffee again. ‘My dad never had a chance to find out that my mother was pregnant. The whole thing shook me to the core. I still can’t get my head round it. All that totally misplaced hatred, for all those years. It shook my belief in who I am and what values I hold, and now I distrust myself. It’s why I want to know what I was like in my early life, what people saw in me, what they thought of me. Does that make any sense?’

‘Oh, I think so,’ he replied. ‘But remember, I’m no expert. I’m not a therapist or counsellor, so I can’t say whether what you’re seeking is going to be constructive or not.’

‘I don’t expect that from you. I’ve had enough therapy over the past year, believe me. But I want to know whether it showed, when I was small, what I was feeling inside about my father. Did it?’

‘I don’t think so. What I remember was a happy little girl of outstanding intelligence and insight. I was a little in awe of you, you know.’

Sophie laughed. ‘Be serious.’

‘I am being serious. I felt that you could have been anything you put your mind to: a surgeon or a top research scientist, or an academic of some kind. It doesn’t surprise me that you ended up studying for a law degree at one of the world’s top universities. But then it also doesn’t surprise me that you’ve ended up as a senior detective. In some ways I’m happier with that than if you’d had a career as a city property lawyer or a financial tycoon. It’s reassuring to know that you have such a socially worthwhile career. I can see how it fits.’