Superstitious Death (20 page)

‘How much do you know about me, Mr Pluke?’ was his response.

‘Considering we have been acquainted for many years due to your generous gift of the shoggling sticks, I know surprisingly little about you, Mr Burholme. But I suspect a good deal…’

‘Go on, tell me what you suspect.’

‘Sweden was neutral during World War II,’ said Pluke, ‘and yet you suffered a war wound. This suggests you were involved in the war effort – but that is not very surprising. For personal reasons, many Swedes did fight in the war. But your arrival in this country after the war, your eventual naturalisation and your links with our security services all combine to suggest that your wartime role was something out of the ordinary. When I began to investigate your background, as we do with all murder suspects, I was told, in no uncertain terms, of your links with our security services. From that, I suspect, Mr Burholme, that you were deeply involved in some wartime work which remains highly sensitive to this day. I believe you proved yourself of inestimable value to Great Britain and the Allies.’

‘You, Mr Pluke, and Sergeant Wain, are both subject to the provisions of the Official Secrets Act, are you not?’

‘Of course,’ confirmed Pluke.

‘You are not wired, are you? Either of you?’

‘No, you may search us if you wish,’ was Pluke’s surprising response and, even more surprisingly, Burholme quickly frisked both detectives.

Satisfied, he said, ‘Good. What I am about to say to you now is off the record. Nothing must be in writing, and when I have finished, I shall deny everything.’

‘I understand,’ said Pluke while Wayne Wain continued to look somewhat baffled.

‘Your reasoning is well based, Mr Pluke, and without revealing precisely what I did during the war, I can confirm that I worked for a branch of military intelligence. I was working deep within the German military high command. I was posing as a German officer and became very close to Hitler. He trusted me, I was privy to many secrets and in fact used a German alias. But I was a British spy, Mr Pluke, passing my information to the British through a network of trusted people. Happily my dual role was never discovered by the Nazis. After the war, though, my name appeared on lists of Nazis being hunted as war criminals. I was hunted under my German alias, Mr Pluke, a name which still appears on the dwindling list of wanted war criminals. But I was not a German and not a war criminal; I was an agent for the Allies, Mr Pluke, and that is why I was given shelter in England. And Bjurholm is not my real Swedish name either, I have had to make use of several false identities in order to maintain my secret. But a lot of Germans, French, Danes and, yes, Swedes did help me and this means I cannot allow my past to be known. Too many people and their families are still open to reprisal, after all this time… so I am Eric Burholme now, a successful English businessman.’

‘I will not attempt to investigate your claims,’ Pluke assured him. ‘It would get me nowhere. So, in a more normal world, what is the story of your donations to the convent?’

‘Josephine Ripley was a very attractive young woman when she worked for me, Mr Pluke, but I was not tempted by her many charms. With my background, I could not afford any kind of adverse publicity or a scandal; most certainly, I could not risk any kind of investigation into my past. I had to be extremely careful in everything I did, I had to cover my tracks throughout my life. Then one evening, I went into one of my outbuildings and caught Josephine in the sex act with a man, one of my customers at that period.’

‘Go on, Mr Burholme.’

‘I dismissed her on the spot and sent her home.’

‘And later she found she was pregnant?’

‘Yes, and to cover the disgrace and circumstances of her dismissal, she told her parents I was the father and that I had sacked her because she was pregnant and I was a happily married man. Her parents believed her and put the baby into the care of nuns, Mr Pluke. They did not want it in the house, but approached me for maintenance. I protested to Josephine’s mother that I was not responsible.’

‘You could have proved it!’ said Wayne Wain. ‘Your war injury.’

‘That is precisely why I could
not
prove my story, Mr Wain. They knew I was of Swedish birth – that was no secret locally – so how would a neutral Swede get a war injury? I could have claimed my injury was from another source but could not risk any kind of examination or investigation. You see the caution I had to exercise? I promised money to the convent school, but never admitted being the father – and for that reason I maintained my distance throughout her life. But I did get reports about Miriam from the Reverend Mother and realised the little girl I was supporting was worthy of my continuing support. So I maintained the payments – my late wife was in full knowledge of those contributions by the way, and the reason for them.’

‘And Miriam’s real father?’

‘He was killed in a traffic accident, Mr Pluke, about eighteen months after I had caught him with Josephine. It meant the girl, Miriam, had no father – another reason for maintaining my support. Because I admire the work done by that convent, in caring for girls in trouble, I have continued my donations and will do so until I die.’

‘I know you support many other charities too, Mr Burholme,’ said Pluke.

‘It is my way of thanking this country for allowing me to live here.’

‘So far as Miriam was concerned, then, you were her father, if not by nature?’

‘I suppose so. Now you will see my dilemma when she came to visit me. She caught me by surprise, Mr Pluke. At first, I was deeply suspicious, as you can understand. I wondered just how much she really knew about me. I wanted time to make an assessment of her, to determine whether she was genuine or whether she was working for the investigative press or some foreign agency. On the other hand, if she was genuine, then I wanted to spend time with her, to get to know her. I must admit I liked her, Mr Pluke, and I said she could stay as long as she wanted. That would enable me to have enquiries made into her background, just to be absolutely sure she was not hunting me for wartime reasons. You know as well as I that people are still hunting down Nazi war criminals.’

‘Even though you are innocent of such evils, you have done well to remain free all these years,’ said Pluke. ‘So she stayed on Friday night and then, on Saturday, you went to a meeting in Harrogate?’

‘Yes, it was important, a business commitment. I did not wish to cancel it. I explained the situation and gave her the run of the house and farm. She came to the gate with me, to see me off, like a little girl would have done for her daddy. She waved, I watched her through my rear view mirror as I left her… I must admit I shed a tear, Mr Pluke. You see, I was thinking – hoping is perhaps a better word – that, at last, I did have a family, that there was someone else in my rather lonely life…’

‘And you returned at what time?’

‘Later than I expected, half-past nine or so. I thought I’d get home about six or thereabouts, and that I could share my evening with Miriam. She called herself Miriam when she introduced herself, she didn’t use her religious name, possibly because I am not a Christian… but when I drove into the yard, she was lying there with her head under that weather-vane. She was dead, Mr Pluke. I’ve seen dead people, lots of them. She’d been dead for a few hours, I think. The vane and part of the coping stone had somehow been knocked off the roof. There was a storm, you see, earlier that evening…’

‘A lightning strike, I believe, Mr Burholme. An act of God.’

‘If there is a God, he would never be so cruel, not to one of his own, Mr Pluke!’

‘A debatable point. Now, what was the condition of her clothing?’

‘Wet, Mr Pluke, from the rain. Her whole body was wet… I broke down, Mr Pluke, I don’t mind admitting that. I thought I was hard. I used to be hard. I had to be to survive as I did in the war, but after such a promising meeting, she was gone. Taken from me in a moment, and when I was not there to help. I sat and wept over her body, my tears adding to the dampness of her clothes… but I recalled my operational orders, Mr Pluke; they remain valid until I die. I had not to court trouble, I had not to do anything which would result in deep investigations into my life by the police, the press or any other agency. I had to cover my tracks, I had to conceal anything that might incriminate me or reveal my past… apart from my Nazi reputation, there are honest people still in Germany and other parts of Europe who helped me, and whose families helped me in my espionage work, you see. They must be protected. If I had called in the authorities, there would have been an enquiry, her past would have emerged and I would have found myself having to answer all manner of questions with undoubted interest from the press. I could not risk that. So I did what I have been trained to do. I established a diversion. To do so, I made use of the existing facts and evidence. This was my military training resurrecting itself. During the war, you see, if a German soldier died, even in something like a domestic fight or drunken brawl, where possible we made it look as if the British had killed him. We doctored the truth for propaganda purposes or political reasons. Faced with what was for me a dilemma of major proportions, I decided to make it appear as if the girl had been murdered and buried in haste by a passer-by, a travelling camper perhaps… Secretly, though, I wanted her body to be found, which is why I chose the shallow earth near the footpath. And I wanted her to have a proper funeral in due course.’

‘I knew you had buried her with care, Mr Burholme. Love almost.’

‘Did I reveal that? You are very astute, Mr Pluke.’

‘The grave was correctly orientated east to west, Mr Burholme, and dug neatly to the correct size. A grave prepared with care and thought. And yet you contradicted that by burying her in shallow soil near a public footpath, a combination of circumstances which almost guaranteed a swift discovery. One deed contradicted the other. That puzzled me and made me suspicious. I realised you would know the quarry had a base of rock – that’s why you kept your heavy machinery there – and so I knew you would be wise enough never to dig a deep grave there… even at that early stage, I scented an inner conflict, Mr Burholme.’

‘I did want her to be quickly found, yes. I wanted her to have a decent burial.’

‘And her belongings? You disposed of them?’

‘In the Aga, Mr Pluke, her family papers too. It consumes almost anything. And I have disposed of the spade, but not in the Aga. You will never find it.’

‘We found gravel in some wounds in her hands, and in her jeans – from the yard outside, I suspect, where she fell. That would indicate her presence here.’

‘It’s the same gravel that covers hundreds of farmyards and car-parks in this area, Mr Pluke. It could never be traced solely to this place.’

‘And the weather-vane. You replaced the weather-vane, after taking the opportunity to straighten any bent pieces, repaint the cockerel and arrows, and grease the bearings?’

‘Yes. I have mechanical training and I do have skills in metalwork, Mr Pluke. I did that on Sunday, along with the coping stone. She was found on Monday.’

‘You carried her body to the grave in your wheelbarrow, Mr Burholme. One mistake was to replace it exactly as it had been before making that use of it.’

‘I realise that now. Clearly, I made mistakes which you noticed. Perhaps others less astute than you or your officers would not have noticed them. Maybe this will be my last military operation, Mr Pluke. I am getting too old for this sort of thing. I have not made such errors in the past nor have I encountered a man like yourself. In addition, I am not up-to-date with modem scientific methods, Mr Pluke. To locate those fibres on the barrow was remarkable.’

‘It’s routine these days, Mr Burholme, not remarkable.’

‘You said using the barrow was one mistake, Mr Pluke. What was the other?’

‘Putting her mirror in the grave, Mr Burholme. I knew a Swede had done that – it was you, I felt. Your Swedish links are evident around the farm, in the cock on the weather-vane and in the colours of your advertising banners. Then I suspected your background when you told me of your war wound, knowing Sweden was neutral…’

‘I congratulate you on that. But so far as the mirror is concerned, it was an automatic action. When I was young, it was always done in our village, Mr Pluke, for maidens. One tends to forget that other cultures differ from one’s own.’

‘That small act told me you
knew
she was a maiden – so when you denied knowing the victim or even seeing her, I knew you were lying. I think you tried a further red herring by telling me about the car you heard on Saturday night, to add credence to the idea that someone else had killed and buried her. Now we have talked, your account confirms all that I suspected, Mr Burholme.’

‘I congratulate you; you have shown some remarkable powers of deduction, Mr Pluke. So what happens now?’

‘There is no crime of murder, Mr Burholme. We shall need to remove your weather-vane to compare the arrow with the wound in her skull, to confirm your account of her death, and then there is the question of minor offences relating to the registration of deaths, the infringement of the coroner’s rules and wasting police time.’

‘Mr Pluke, think carefully. For me, nothing has changed. There can be no prosecutions, even for minor offences. The security of those with whom I was associated during the war remains of the highest priority. I cannot be compromised in any way whatever. In accordance with my standing orders, valid even to this day, I have informed the Security Services of this incident, and they will be contacting your Superintendent Hart.’