Skeleton Plot (4 page)

He said gruffly, ‘We’ll need details of the people working for you throughout those phases of development at Brenton Park.’

‘No can do. My records are long gone. Even the tax people allow you to throw things away after five years.’

‘You’ve not even got the names and addresses of your work force?’

‘Ships that pass in the night, Superintendent.’ He was becoming more truculent as he felt himself on safer ground. ‘My secretary from those days is no longer around. Went down to be nearer her daughter in Dorset. Be dead now, I should think.’ He nodded as if he thought that a consummation devoutly to be wished. ‘I’ve got a PA now, of course. But she wouldn’t know anything about those days.’

‘Then it seems we’re going to be almost totally dependent on you. We’ll need you to cudgel your memory and come up with whatever you can in the way of names and significant incidents from the several years you spent on building the houses and bungalow at Brenton Park.’

‘Bloody nuisance it was, that bungalow. The council made us put one bungalow in, as part of the planning permission.’

‘You didn’t have Councillor Caffrey in your camp then, of course.’

Fowler glowered, but didn’t rise to the bait. ‘Last property on the site, that bungalow was. Right up against the farmer’s field. He got quite shirty when I tried to pinch a bit of his land. But farmers are like that, aren’t they? You never get owt for nowt from a farmer, do you?’ He shook his head, possibly in recognition of his deplorable attempt at a Yorkshire accent.

‘Difficult was he, the farmer?’

‘Just bloody awkward, most of the time. Resented that there was no money in it for him, I expect, after what we’d paid for the nursery. But I wasn’t interested in his land – green belt you see, not building land.’

‘He did all right in the end, though, didn’t he? Sold bits of agricultural land to the residents on that side of the site, to supplement the meagre gardens they’d been allotted by the builder.’

‘Aye. Sold ground that was just pasture land for him for quite handsome sums, the crafty sod. I’m not sure that was him, though. I think he’d sold the farm and moved out by then. He were a rum bugger, old Burrell. A right rum bugger.’

D
r Patterson, the pathologist, had been a little too self-important and a little too protective of his status on the site when the skeleton had been discovered. In the subsequent investigation his professionalism was exemplary and he produced the rapid results John Lambert had requested.

He conducted the detailed laboratory tests he had outlined to the CID men on site, he consulted colleagues who had more experience of bone analysis than he had and he swiftly produced a detailed report. This was immensely useful in pinning down the time of this death and eventually in the identification of the victim. As Lambert said, it was all very well for Hamlet to reminisce over Yorick, but modern police officers had to be certain of the identity of a skull before they could indulge in any philosophy.

Patterson’s tests on carbon and teeth revealed that the remains were those of a female of between twenty and twenty-two years. She had died around twenty years ago, after the house and greenhouses of the nursery had been cleared from the neighbouring site and the first phase of the building development had begun. Largely because there was no soft tissue to investigate, it was impossible to be certain about a cause of death.

There was a severe blow to the side of the head which might in itself have been terminal but could equally well have been a posthumous injury. It could even have been caused by a spade or stone in the course of the burial: the shallowness of the grave and the face-down position of the body indicated that the interment had probably been hasty and rapid. Strands of hair had been found in the ground which were detached from the head but had certainly belonged to this corpse. Hair retains its evidence for a long period, and this hair indicated that its owner had taken illegal drugs in some quantity in the months before death.

Lambert digested these findings in his office with Bert Hook and Detective Inspector Chris Rushton, who was anxious to file any information which would narrow and concentrate their search for whoever had ended this young life and whoever had consigned her body to the earth. They were not necessarily the same person or persons, as Rushton had already reminded the young constables who were being assigned to the team which it had now been accepted was necessary.

DI Rushton, who always organized the welter of information which accrued quickly around a murder hunt, was edgy because so far he had almost nothing to file on this one. Ignorance distressed Chris; so long as there were findings to record from house-to-house enquiries and the standard procedures which went into operation around a ‘normal’ killing, he was content. Even though he knew that in the end most of what he filed would eventually prove to be irrelevant, he was happy in the knowledge that nothing must be missed, because apparently random facts often provided the keys to solving serious crimes.

The strange hiatus surrounding this older death distressed Chris. Until they knew precisely when an unknown woman had died and been thrust hastily into the ground, most of the normal procedures were suspended. He now reported what he could to prove to the two older men, and perhaps to himself, that he had not been idle. ‘There’s no record of anyone in the immediate area being reported missing at around that time. It could be a missing person from somewhere else in the country, of course, but until we have a more definite date, there’s no point in opening that can of worms.’

Mispers. That vast, anonymous army of people who choose to disappear from families to seek anonymity elsewhere in the country, for a huge variety of reasons, most of which involve fear or panic. A feature of British life in the twenty-first century which is both depressing and dangerous to the rest of society. Some of these people become criminals in order to survive. Many more of them become prey for the vicious predators who need both a market for drugs and a host of junior dealers to sell them.

When minors disappear, the police do their best to locate them before they are absorbed into the murky underworlds of drugs or prostitution. With adults, they take the details of mispers and, unless there are criminal acts to be investigated and criminals to pursue, do very little more. The details of the person who has disappeared are recorded on the Police National Computer and are available for officers anywhere in the country to pursue; this usually only happens when they become either criminals or victims. There are simply too many mispers for the police service to pursue. When the police find mispers, they cannot compel them to return whence they have come unless there are criminal charges and arrests. Apart from these cases, it would be foolish and uneconomical for officers to dissipate their energies for very meagre returns. Their favourite and justified reaction is ‘We are officers of the law, not social workers.’

Lambert said with a conviction he could not really justify at this moment, ‘We’ll get a definite date for this. And when we get a definite date, we’ll soon find a definite person. And when we find a definite person, that person will also be a victim.’

Daniel Burrell was the farmer who had owned the land where the bones had been interred around twenty years earlier. He did not at first sight justify Jason Fowler’s description of him as ‘a right rum bugger’.

He looked, in fact, quite benign. He had thinning white hair which was tidily parted and a broad face in which the red veins were only visible at close quarters because of the permanent tan which comes from many years of outdoor life. He had a broad nose and blue eyes which narrowed as he was approached by these two formidable men. The young woman who had brought them to him said rather too loudly, ‘These are two important policemen who want to talk to you, Daniel. Mr Lambert is very important indeed and Detective Sergeant Hook used to play cricket for Herefordshire. You might remember him doing that.’

‘There’s no need to bloody shout, woman! I’m not deaf, like most of the poor sods in here. And it’s Mr Burrell to you, not Daniel. And why the hell should I remember some sod playing cricket?’

‘He’s like this,’ the attendant said to the CID men with a shake of her head. ‘Got out on the wrong side of the bed today did we, Mr Burrell?’

‘No, I bloody didn’t. And you can piss off now, young woman. This is private business, between men.’

She bathed the three of them in her benign, understanding smile and then departed with a measured, upright dignity. Burrell watched her go; an unexpected smile flashed briefly across his face as he studied her curvaceous and mobile rear. Then he turned not to Lambert but to Hook. ‘I do remember you playing cricket, but I wasn’t going to let on to her about it. Bloody good bowler, you were. You should still be playing.’

Hook smiled. ‘Age catches up with all of us, Mr Burrell.’ He glanced down sympathetically at the wheelchair. ‘My boss here has introduced me to golf. I play that now, but I don’t find it an easy game.’

‘GOLF!’ Burrell delivered his outrage in capitals and invested the monosyllable with a massive contempt. He looked as though he would like to spit but had no receptacle available. Then he said unexpectedly, ‘You’re the rozzer who got yourself a degree, aren’t you?’

‘I am, yes. But—’

‘You must find a degree no bloody use at all when you’re trying to knock sense into young toughs, I should think.’

‘It’s not of much use in the job, no. But I never thought it would be. And we don’t use any physical violence nowadays, except in self-defence and—’

‘I’d be using a lot of self-defence, if I were a copper. Wouldn’t stand for the lip some of these young yobbos think they can dish out.’

‘I see. Well, much as we’d like to discuss methods of modern policing on this pleasant Sunday morning, we have more important questions to ask you.’

‘Sunday, is it? You hardly know one day from another, in places like this. Oh, they’re kind enough, most of the staff, but they think we’re all as daft as some of the old biddies who’ve completely lost it, poor devils.’

Lambert took his chance to intervene in a conversation which had so far bypassed him completely. ‘I’m glad to see and hear that you still have all your considerable wits about you, Mr Burrell, because we have a few questions to ask you. We need your help rather desperately, as a matter of fact.’

Daniel Burrell turned his wheelchair a fraction to give the senior man the full benefit of the glower he now produced. ‘And what if I choose not to answer your bloody impertinent questions?’

‘Then we could take you down to Oldford police station with us and charge you with obstructing the police in the pursuit of their duties. But we won’t need to do that, because you’re a highly respectable citizen and you will wish to demonstrate that, by offering us every assistance you possibly can.’

Burrell glared at him for a moment before shifting his attention back to Hook. ‘Gobby bastard, isn’t he, your gaffer? Treat you badly does he?’

Bert Hook smiled, recognizing the fun the man in the wheelchair was having. No doubt he found life in the care home trying: it seemed to be an environment which looked after him physically but denied him much fun. ‘He’s not a bad gaffer, for most of the time. He did introduce me to golf, but I can’t think of anything else he’s done that’s really cruel.’

‘Aye. Well, he’s top brass, isn’t he? But at least he’s not sitting on his arse behind a desk and ordering others about. At least he’s out here wasting his time on old sods like me, instead of letting others do it.’

Hook grinned, studiously avoiding any eye contact with Lambert. ‘I bet you didn’t do much sitting about on your arse when you were running the farm, did you, Mr Burrell?’

The old man leaned forward, grinned briefly at Bert. ‘You can call me Daniel, if you want to. Or even Dan. Not Danny, mind – I never liked Danny. But you’re right: I didn’t sit on my bottom and expect others to do all the work. Never asked any bugger to do what I wouldn’t do myself. Mind you, we have machines for almost everything, nowadays. Young ’uns don’t know they’re born.’

Bert nodded. ‘I should think you knew every bit of your land.’

Burrell nodded. His eyes looked out through the window at the sky and his mind slid back forty years. ‘I knew every foot of it. I knew where it was stony and where it was boggy – that was only in the lowest bits. I had my cattle and my hens. I knew what grew hay and what grew wheat and what was only good for pasture. They said mixed farms were finished, but I ran one and made it pay. That was when I was young. It’s all gone now.’

He didn’t sigh or express any regret in words, but there was a huge sadness in his face as he looked resolutely at the sky and away from his present surroundings. He looked in that moment like a figure from a Hardy novel, or a detail from a Victorian painting on the theme of rural decline. Hook waited until his attention came reluctantly back to his visitors before he said, ‘When did you sell the farm, Daniel?’

Burrell took his time over his answer. It seemed like yesterday to him, but he knew that it was a long time ago, in this world of younger men. And it was important to him that he got the answer not just correct but precisely correct. That was the way you showed in this place that you were still a person who could think, not an old fossil waiting to be buried and forgotten. ‘Be eighteen years come September. Fourteenth of September. That’s when I signed the farm away. I gave Jim Simmons time to pay, but I gave up control then. I was sixty-six then, and they all said pensioners shouldn’t be farming. I’m eighty-four now and I could still teach ’em a thing or two, if they’d only listen.’

They could check that easily enough, but Hook had no doubt that the old man would be right. It meant that Burrell had been at the farm when this still unidentified young woman had died and been buried at the edge of his ground. Bert said gently, ‘You were still there when the building work began next to your land, then?’

‘Where the old nursery was, yes. Jumped-up little sod he was, that builder. But I put one across on ’im, didn’t I?’

‘Did you, Daniel? Tell us how.’

‘I ’ad a piggery quite near to the edge of that plant nursery he’d bought. He thought the stink would stop people buying his posh new houses, didn’t he? You get ’ell of a pong from pig shit, as you two probably know. So he paid me five thousand to close it down.’ He looked from side to side, as if he feared other geriatrics might hear this and peach on him, even at this stage. Then he leaned forward towards Hook and said, ‘Daft bugger didn’t know I’d already shut the sties down and got rid of the pigs, did he?’

The cackle of Burrell’s ancient laughter rang loud around the big room, causing white heads to turn in consternation towards him. Bert Hook grinned conspiratorially at him. ‘I can see no one would put one across on you, Daniel. Your memory’s obviously as sharp as it ever was.’

‘’Tis for those days. Can’t always tell you what we had for dinner yesterday, though.’ He stared out at the sky again. ‘Every day’s the same in ’ere, see. Rain or shine. Even snow doesn’t make much difference when you’re in here.’

‘No. You’re warm and dry and well fed here. Not out in all weathers and wondering where the next meal’s coming from.’

Burrell stared at him for a moment, then reluctantly accepted the logic of this. ‘I suppose so. But I still miss being out in the open and feeling the sun and the wind on my face. Even the rain and the hail and the snow, if it comes to that.’ He glanced down sadly at his thinning legs in the wheelchair.

What he really missed was being thirty or forty and full of energy rather than eighty-four and physically failing, thought Hook. Just as he himself missed marking out his run, running up to the wicket rhythmically and making the best minor counties batsmen hop about a bit. At least you could play golf for as long as you could walk round the course; people had told him that, but he didn’t find it much of a consolation when he was searching among the bluebells for his ball. He smiled at Daniel Burrell and said, ‘This is from your farming days, Dan. And it might be rather important, so we’d like you to think carefully about it. Did you employ any women when you were running the farm?’

‘No. I remember Land Army girls when I was a kid. One of them had a nice tight bum which I can still remember.’ A dreamy smile infused his lined features, then was swiftly dismissed in favour of sterner thoughts. ‘But they disappeared after the war. And we didn’t have no girls there, not in my time. More and more machinery, but no girls. Well, there was my Emily, of course: she kept us fed and did the washing. She didn’t work on the land. She could tell you a tale or two, if she was still here.’ His eyes were misty with remembrance of things past. But after a moment he said gruffly, ‘She died three years ago. Not long before I came in here.’ He glanced up resentfully at the stuccoed ceiling, as if the two events were connected, as no doubt they were.