Gift Wrapped (22 page)

‘Yes,' Bartlem conceded, ‘it is a very nice place to live, but look at this house, my little back-to-back in a terrace – this is the sort of house we grew up in, this is the level of society we are ... not a large house in a posh village ... But her ... Mrs pushy, pushy, want, want, she wanted the world, yet she wasn't exactly born with a silver spoon in her mouth either.'

‘Oh?' Webster queried.

‘Simple folk same as us and she acquired a criminal record,' Paul Bartlem advised Webster, ‘under the maiden name of Cleg, though nothing since she married. Not that we knew of anyway, but secrecy is her middle name, so who knows?'

‘I'll look her up,' Webster replied. ‘It should make interesting reading.' He paused and then asked, ‘Can you tell me anything else about your brother's disappearance? Anything that you think we ought to know?'

‘Well ...' Paul Bartlem looked uncomfortable, ‘I can only tell you what Mrs pushy, pushy, want, want told us when she returned from France ... and that wasn't much, it wasn't much at all.' He breathed deeply as if, thought Webster, he was gathering emotional strength. ‘She told us that he went for a walk and didn't return, as I said, and she stuck to that story. They waited for twenty-four hours, so she said, and then reported him as a missing person to the French police. They both returned home, back to England. You know it really was so unlike Edward to do that, to go for a walk by himself in a foreign country, and in a country he disliked. Edward never did like being by himself, he was very talkative. Like a lot of taxi drivers he enjoyed putting the world to rights. He never needed to be the centre of attention or anything like that, not our Eddie, but he did like being part of a gang. He was never really happy with his own company, like some people are. So it's all a mystery, the type of holiday, going abroad, and to France of all places, going off by himself when he couldn't speak a word of the lingo ... it's all not Eddie, not the Edward we knew anyway, and he was our brother, we knew him very well.'

‘Did you meet Julia Bartlem's sister?' Webster asked.

‘Only at the wedding,' Paul Bartlem replied.

‘Did you – do you – have any thoughts about her?' Webster probed.

‘A few thoughts and none of them any good. They were twin sisters; the pair of them were both pushy, pushy, want, wants. They looked similar but not the same and they even seemed to think the same. They are not identical twins but I have often thought it was like they had the same personality divided between two bodies.'

‘Interesting,' Webster murmured.

‘But, like I said,' Bartlem continued, ‘that is based on only the one meeting.'

‘Fair enough.' Webster paused. ‘So what became of your brother's business?'

‘She acquired it ... and their house ... it's all in her name now. All of it. Our Eddie was declared deceased two years after he was reported missing. He left everything to her in his will. They had no children, which was quite a sadness for our Eddie. All his hard work and sweat and sleepless nights that went into building that wretched taxi business and she owns it all now and is just sunning herself. It's so unfair.'

‘Yes, it can seem like that,' Webster nodded, ‘it can all seem very unfair.' He paused, then asked, ‘Can I ask if you had any contact from the French police at all, that is in respect of your brother?'

‘None, we have heard nothing at all. My sister Helen, the youngest, she often says, “Well that's good, isn't it? It means he might still be alive somewhere ... it's a case of no news is good news”.' Bartlem took a deep breath. ‘But my older sister, she's a bit more worldly-wise, she says no contact just means that the body has not been found or if it has been found, it hasn't been identified. Sylvia always was a bit more down to earth than Helen. She, Sylvia, just accepted that we will never see Edward again. Me ... I am torn ... I hope Helen is correct, but I fear Sylvia is the one who is the correct ... and his wife ...'

‘Yes,' Webster smiled, ‘I was going to ask about Mrs Bartlem's reaction to his disappearance?'

‘She didn't seem concerned. She tried to look worried but she's no actress. I fancied I could almost see her grinning from ear to ear inside her head as if she thought everything was going to plan. I am sure she knows exactly what happened over there in France but she insists on playing the grieving widow.' Paul Bartlem spoke in a cold manner. ‘At least she tries to play the grieving widow, but, like I said, she's no actress.'

Webster asked if he saw much of Julia Bartlem.

‘As little as possible,' was Paul Bartlem's curt reply, ‘and that is practically no contact at all, which suits me and my sisters down to the ground.' He shook his head. ‘So Edward did things he'd never do, three went to France and just the two sisters returned, and the other sister, Alice, that's the other strange thing, she went straight back to her husband as though there had been no rough patch in the marriage at all. Then, two years elapse and Julia becomes the outright owner of Eddie's business and their home. Iffy, don't you think? Very, very iffy.'

‘Perhaps.' Webster gently and slowly patted his notebook with the top of his ballpoint pen. ‘I confess I don't like the sound of it at all. Not at all. If I was in your shoes I would be suspicious ... but at least we are investigating.'

‘Yes, and that is appreciated,' Paul Bartlem replied, still in a soft voice. ‘I am sorry if I sound ill-tempered, but over the years no one has seemed to care despite the huge cloud of suspicion.'

‘So what do you think happened?' Webster asked.

‘I suspect ... I don't know.' Paul Bartlem looked downwards at the carpet.

‘Good enough.' Webster smiled. ‘So, within these four walls, between you and me and the gatepost, what's your take on the mystery of your brother's disappearance? What is it that you suspect happened?'

‘My take?' Paul Bartlem sat forward. ‘You ask for my take? My take is that the twins of evil, the evil sisters Cleg, took him to France in order to kill him, so they could get their hands on his money. They intended to hide the body and then report him to the French police as a missing person. They were driving about in a VW camper van so no home for the police to visit, no scene of crime unless it was inside the van, and I doubt they'd be careless enough to spill his blood inside the van.' Paul Bartlem's jaw set firm. ‘And you know, the other interesting point is where he was reported missing ... I mean, the location that he was reputed to have disappeared?'

‘Oh?' Webster was intrigued. ‘Why should the location be significant?'

‘It is very close to the Belgian border,' Bartlem explained.

‘Ah.' Webster held eye contact with Paul Bartlem. ‘You know, Mr Bartlem, I think I can see where you are going with this, but do carry on.'

‘Well,' Bartlem continued, ‘pull up at a roadside stop one evening, not in a crowded campsite, get him to sit down ... bang him over the head with a stone ... not to kill him but to disable him just long enough to put a plastic bag over his head. They need not kill him, in fact; just one minute without oxygen will be quite sufficient to bring on his brain death.'

‘Yes ... so I believe,' Webster nodded.

‘I watch those crime dramas on TV,' Paul Bartlem explained. ‘In fact, to tell you the truth, I have got very interested in them since Eddie vanished.'

‘I can understand that,' Webster replied. ‘But do go on.'

‘So then, and this is just my take, as you asked, they bundle his body back into the camper van and, being careful and only using the back roads, they drive into Belgium. I think that they would have then stripped his body of all clothing and removed all form of identification; then dumped his poor body in a ditch. If they didn't kill him he would have died of thirst within two or three days, but I suspect that they must have made sure he was dead.'

‘I suspect so too,' Webster commented. ‘But do, please, carry on.'

‘Then they return to France and report him as a missing person to the French authorities. You see, if his body was found I understand that it would be reported to the Belgian authorities, who would file a report and check their own missing persons list, but they would not check it with any missing person reported to the French, or any other European country.'

‘Yes,' Webster nodded his head, ‘that's what would happen – there is no Pan European missing person database. Was your brother a tall man? Would he have been able to fight off two female attackers?'

‘No ... no, he was small like me ... and a taxi driver so he wasn't muscular at all. If they attacked him when he was asleep, or attacked him from behind when he was sitting down, he would have had no chance to defend himself ... I fear that my sister Sylvia is right. I fear that his body is likely to have been discovered, given a name and buried in a Belgian cemetery with a simple graveside service. Yes, my sister Sylvia is right; my sister Helen is wrong. My brother Eddie is dead.'

Webster stood. ‘Thank you, Mr Bartlem. I'll go and talk to my boss ... then we'll contact the Belgian authorities. Where exactly was your brother reported missing?'

‘A small town called Mohon in the Ardennes, to the north of Rheims. I looked it up and I promise you, you just couldn't get closer to Belgium. But thank you, thank you so very much. I am so relieved, so grateful that the police are taking an interest at long last.'

‘It seems to link with another inquiry.' Webster wrote ‘Mohon' on his notepad. ‘It is often the way of it. But rest assured, we will now be looking closely at Mr Bartlem's disappearance.'

‘So, do they link, Reg?' Hennessey clasped his hands behind his head, grinned and raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you think?'

‘The twin sisters?' Webster shrugged. ‘It's much too early to say yet, sir.'

‘And do they link somehow in some way to the murder of James Wenlock?' Hennessey leaned forward and once again cast his eye over Julia Cleg's criminal record. It was all ‘low-end stuff' as Webster had told him, shoplifting mainly and also one conviction for ‘disorderly conduct' – hardly a blip on the radar, he thought, and noted that there was nothing at all added to the file since she left her teenage years behind her and she became Mrs Julia Bartlem. ‘Or are we looking at another red herring?'

‘We can't say that yet either, sir,' Webster replied calmly. ‘But we mustn't lose sight of the fact that the last red herring led us to a conviction for a murder which we didn't know had taken place, so that diversion was not such a red herring after all.'

‘Point taken ... but we must also not lose sight of the fact that we have to investigate the murder of James Wenlock and not get involved with any investigation the French police might be undertaking in respect of the disappearance of Edward Bartlem ... That holiday in France does indeed sound so very, very suspicious. Everything Edward Bartlem did on that holiday was allegedly so wildly out of character, and why on earth should Mrs Bartlem tell us that her husband is a living and healthy geography teacher when in fact he is missing, and almost certainly a deceased, taxi driver?'

‘Only she can tell us, sir,' Webster replied. ‘Shall we bring her in for a quiz session?'

‘No, not yet,' Hennessey stroked his chin, ‘I think we should be a little more circumspect. She seemed most anxious that we find the body of James Wenlock. So why would she want us to do that, I wonder? But ... we'll be cautious, we will be very cautious here. She is not going anywhere. Can you contact the French police at ... where was it?' Hennessey appealed. ‘These obscure French names.'

‘Mohon, sir.' Webster grinned.

‘Sounds like a French verb,' Hennessey growled. ‘Anyway, tell the blessed frogs we are developing an interest in Mr Edward Bartlem's disappearance, just a courtesy notification at this time, I think, and if you would, prepare a media release for the French/Belgian press.'

‘Very good, sir,' Webster stood. ‘I'll get on that straight away.'

‘Thank you, Reg. Tomorrow I think we turn to the connection between Mr Wenlock and Mr Mellish,' Hennessey glanced out of his office window, ‘and that will most definitely have to be a two-hander.'

George Hennessey sedately drove home and, as he did so, just as he left the suburbs and had joined the open country, a motorcyclist came up behind him at speed and roared past him, thus awakening his other demon, and once woken it rose and occupied the forefront of his mind for the remainder of his journey. It would probably have tortured him late into the evening had it not been for the fact that, on that day, joy awaited him.

After the motorcyclist had overtaken him his mind turned to his boyhood in Greenwich, helping his beloved older brother polish his equally beloved Triumph motorcycle each Sunday morning, and how he would be rewarded for his assistance by a trip as a pillion passenger up to town, round the sites and back, south of the river, over Westminster Bridge and round Blackheath Park. He recalled there was the day that Graham caused worry and grief to their parents by announcing that he was giving up his safe job at the bank in order to train to become a photographer, but Graham's mind was made up and he would not be dissuaded from his new-found ambition. Then, there fell that fateful night, when George Hennessey lay abed listening to his brother kick life into his machine, rev the engine and ride away, changing up the gears as he drove along Trafalgar Road towards the Maritime Museum and the Cutty Sark. Once the sound of his brother's bike had faded it was replaced by other sounds: ships on the river, an Irishman tramping slowly up Colomb Street chanting his Hail Mary's in a drunken, slurred voice as he passed beneath George Hennessey's window. Later ... later that night came the dread knock, the distinct police officers' knock ... tap, tap ... tap ... a knock he was to come to use, then the hushed but urgent conversations ... his mother's shriek followed by her prolonged uncontrollable wailing, his father coming to his room, fighting back his own tears as he told the young George Hennessey that Graham had ‘ridden his bike to heaven ... to save a place for us'. It had, it transpired, been the case that Graham lost control of his bike as it ran over a patch of oil in the road.