The Blood Pit (5 page)

Annette hesitated again. ‘Fabrice came storming round here on Monday. They had a big row.’

‘What about?’ Wesley asked.

‘I wasn’t involved in Charlie’s business dealings. He never confided in me.’ She sounded slightly bitter about her late husband’s
failure to communicate. ‘I suggest you ask Fabrice,’ she added in a tone that made Wesley suspect she knew exactly what the
two men had argued about but she wasn’t telling. Perhaps, he thought, it was something personal – a dispute over money, maybe
… or over a woman.

‘Yes, we’ll do that,’ he said. ‘You didn’t overhear what they were saying?’

‘I’m not in the habit of eavesdropping on private conversations,’ she answered self-righteously. Wesley didn’t believe a word
of it.

‘Did your husband have any other enemies?’

Annette took a sip of her coffee before answering. ‘He was successful. Successful men have enemies. People can’t stand success
in this country, have you noticed that?’

Wesley, assuming the question was rhetorical, didn’t answer.

‘They resent people like Charlie,’ she continued. ‘And Charlie didn’t suffer fools gladly.’

Heffernan leaned forward. ‘How do you mean?’

Annette waved her hand in a vague manner. ‘You know. People who worked for him and all that.’

Wesley caught on quickly. ‘Has he sacked anyone recently?’

‘He was always sacking people,’ Annette said, as though people being deprived of their livelihoods was an insignificance.

He glanced at Petronella and saw that she was staring into her coffee, looking as if she’d rather be somewhere else. And he
saw something else on her face – embarrassment. She found her biological mother embarrassing. He wondered why she’d come down.
But then a mother is a mother and there’s no time of need like sudden widowhood.

‘We’ll need names.’

Annette gave another vague wave of her manicured hand. ‘You’ll have to ask at the shop … and the warehouse.’

‘Would that be the shop in Tradmouth? Marrick and Company, Vintners?’

She nodded.

Wesley knew the shop. It was the expensive place near the market that specialised in vintage clarets – all the usual chateaux;
Margaux, Mouton de Rothschild, Petrus, etcetera. Wesley had found himself in there by mistake when he’d first arrived in Tradmouth
and he’d gone through the humiliating experience of searching desperately for the cheapest bottle in the shop under the sneering
eye of a haughty assistant. Nowadays he bought his liquid sunshine at the supermarket.

‘We know where that is but we’ll need the address of the warehouse.’

Annette rose slowly and picked up the notepad that lay beside the telephone. She wrote something down and shoved the paper
over the table towards Heffernan who looked at it before shoving it into his trouser pocket.

‘What kind of man was Charlie?’ Wesley asked gently as the widow sat down again.

‘As I said, he didn’t suffer fools gladly.’ She shot a swift, almost imperceptible, glance at Petronella. ‘And he liked his
own way.’

Petronella sat, still and silent. She didn’t look at her mother and showed no sign of contradicting this harsh assessment
of her stepfather’s character. Wesley wondered, for the second time, what had brought on this animosity. Had something happened
between Petronella and Charlie? They were around the same age. Perhaps there had been a sexual attraction at one time. He
had no doubt that he’d find out in due course. But in the meantime he’d take things slowly.

Annette’s comments had aroused Gerry Heffernan’s curiosity. ‘What do you mean, liked his own way? Would you describe him as
a bully? Did he bully his staff?’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Or you?’

‘He expected the best of the people who worked for him,’ Annette said defensively. ‘There’s nothing wrong in that.’

‘And what about your relationship?’

‘That’s none of your bloody business,’ she hissed after a long silence.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Marrick, but in a murder enquiry we have to ask intrusive questions,’ said Wesley smoothly, trying to rescue
the situation. ‘It would help us to catch Charlie’s killer if you’d answer them as honestly as you can. We’re not here to judge,
just to find out the truth.’ He felt quite pleased with this little speech but one look at Annette’s face told him that it
hadn’t had the desired effect. She turned her head away and drummed on the table impatiently with her fingers.

Both men sensed that they weren’t going to get anywhere with the Widow Marrick. It would be wise to leave it for now … and
maybe have a word with Petronella on her own. But that would have to wait: time was marching on and Charlie Marrick’s postmortem
was booked for two o’clock that afternoon.

It was Heffernan who stood up first, telling the two women he’d want to talk to them again, making the simple statement sound
more like a threat than a promise.

‘What do you think?’ Wesley asked as they climbed into the car.

‘That Annette’s hiding something,’ Heffernan stated bluntly. ‘Probably the fact that she killed him. Most murders are domestic.’

Wesley didn’t reply. He was keeping an open mind. It was almost midday and they decided to call in at the police station to
see whether the team had come up with anything useful in their absence.

Wesley started the engine. ‘Mind if we call at Neil’s dig on the way back? He came round last night.’ He paused. ‘He’s had
a strange letter.’

Gerry Heffernan suddenly looked interested. ‘How do you mean, strange?’

‘Anonymous … about monks.’

‘Monks?’

‘That’s what Neil said.’

‘There are some strange people about,’ was the DCI’s verdict.

‘And blood. It mentions bleeding. I’m thinking of Charles Marrick.’

‘Why should the killer write to Neil?’

‘I don’t know. Unless that TV appearance he made’s brought some lunatic out of the woodwork.’

‘Have you told him about Marrick?’

Wesley shook his head. ‘He’s jumpy enough already,’ he said as they turned on to the road leading to Neil’s dig.

After a few hundred yards, Wesley spotted an open farm gate and a group of mud-splashed cars parked just inside the entrance
to a field. He slowed down to a crawl and saw a trio of green awnings in the near distance flapping lazily in the gentle breeze
. This, coupled with the handwritten sign
hanging on the gatepost saying ‘Welcome to the DCAU Training Excavation’, told Wesley he’d come to the right place.

‘Where is he?’ Heffernan asked impatiently as he got out of the car, testing the ground to satisfy himself that the earth
was solid beneath his feet.

Wesley could see Neil talking to a group of earnest-faced young people who seemed to be hanging on his every word. He must
have said something amusing because they laughed dutifully before returning to their trenches and starting work again, scraping
at the earth with the dedicated concentration of the learner.

When Neil saw the two policemen he waved them over and led them to a tumbledown farm building with a corrugated iron roof
at the far end of the field. ‘It’s a cow shed,’ he explained when he saw Gerry Heffernan’s puzzled frown. ‘It’s got a tap
and there’s even electricity in the form of one bare light bulb so we’re using it as a site office. The farmer provides us
with flasks of boiling water for the tea and at least we can wash the finds. I’ve worked in worse places.’

Gerry Heffernan tried to look impressed but failed miserably.

‘Have you brought the letter?’ Wesley asked, suddenly impatient.

Neil opened the bottom drawer of the rusty filing cabinet in the corner and took out a crumpled envelope. Wesley read the
note inside without comment.

‘
I’m scared I’ll do something terrible. I’m scared the bleeding won’t stop.’

He passed the note to Gerry who read it in silence and gave it back. Wesley could tell he was thinking the same as he was.
Charlie Marrick had bled to death and the author of the note had hinted that he might do something terrible. Had he planned
to kill Charlie Marrick and felt an urge to confess all to Neil Watson for some inexplicable reason? The
idea, Wesley thought to himself, was quite preposterous. But stranger things had happened.

‘Mind if I keep this?’ he asked.

‘Help yourself,’ Neil replied. ‘I’m glad to get the thing off my hands. Want to have a quick tour of the site?’ he asked as
Wesley put the envelope carefully into a plastic evidence bag.

It would have been bad manners, Wesley reasoned, to refuse Neil’s invitation. Gerry Heffernan said nothing as he followed Neil
and Wesley outside, glad of a break from investigating Charlie Marrick’s murder … just as Wesley was.

As Neil led them from trench to trench, the diggers – who were mostly young apart from a few middle-aged enthusiasts – glanced
up but quickly looked down again. Two men in suits meant officialdom – probably some bureaucrats from the Council checking
on Health and Safety.

Wesley looked at what had been uncovered; substantial stone walls and a section of tiled floor which he recognised as medieval.
Here, in the middle of nowhere, someone had gone to considerable trouble to build a high status building and his first thought
was that it might have been the manor house attached to some abandoned and long-forgotten village.

Neil, of course, had done his homework and had consulted local documents and ancient maps. The site, he explained, had belonged
to the Cistercian Abbey of Veland a few miles to the west – until Henry VIII had cast his avaricious eyes over the nation’s
monasteries and closed the abbey down, stripping the place of its wealth and its roof of its lead. The abbey itself had been
bought by a wealthy landowner and converted into a handsome country pile while the mysterious cluster of buildings at Stow
Barton had decayed and crumbled so that now only a few walls and tumbled stones were left above ground.

Neil’s guess was that it had been a monastic farm, a grange.
Or perhaps a luxury retreat for the abbot, an escape from the day-to-day chore of running the abbey – the equivalent of a
Russian dacha for high-up officials of the old Communist Party. The old maps he’d seen referred to it as the site of a manor
house. But, like Wesley with his murder enquiry, he wasn’t leaping to any hasty conclusions.

Wesley looked at his watch: they had been there half an hour and it was time they moved on. As they trudged across the rutted
ground to the car, Gerry Heffernan commented that Neil’s discoveries looked interesting and he wouldn’t mind having a go at
this digging lark himself. This left Wesley speechless as he drove back to Tradmouth for Charlie Marrick’s postmortem. Gerry
had always seemed to find the fact that Wesley had spent three years at university learning how to dig things up mildly amusing.
Perhaps Neil’s new tactic of reaching out to the public was having the desired effect in the most unexpected places.

On their way back to the police station, they bought a couple of sandwiches from Burton’s Butties, the shop where Steve Carstairs’s
father worked. Wesley found himself looking out for Steve’s father, intrigued to see the man who had produced such a son, but
he was nowhere to be seen. When they reached the CID office they found it was almost deserted as most of the team were out
pursuing enquiries. But this was how Gerry Heffernan liked it – sitting like a lord in his castle while his vassals were out
hunting down information to bring back and lay at his feet.

Taking advantage of the rare oasis of peace, they made themselves comfortable in the DCI’s cluttered office, eating their
sandwiches from the packet and washing down their impromptu lunch with two plastic cups filled with a boiling liquid from
the machine in the corridor that was alleged to be tea.

Wesley took Neil’s letter from his pocket. ‘Worth sending this to Forensic, do you think?’

He pushed it across the desk and Heffernan studied it carefully.

‘Bit crumpled,’ he said after a few moments.

‘Neil said he chucked it in the bin then thought better of it.’

‘The envelope’s postmarked Neston so it must be a local nutter. But there’s no actual threat is there? He’s just saying he’s
scared he might do something. When did Neil receive it?’

‘A couple of days ago. It was certainly posted before Charlie Marrick was murdered if that’s what you’re thinking.’

Heffernan read the note through again and shook his head. ‘Neil gets this and Marrick’s found bled to death. Is it a coincidence
or not? Whoever wrote this says he’s going to do something terrible … maybe he did.’

‘I’ll get it sent to Forensic,’ said Wesley, taking the letter from his boss. ‘Interesting that the writer’s showing off his
historical knowledge to Neil … almost as if he’s trying to make himself feel important.’

‘Perhaps that’s what it’s all about – some poor inadequate wanting to feel significant.’

Wesley smiled. ‘You could be right.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps that’s why he killed Marrick – to make himself feel powerful. The
ultimate power.’

‘After a job as a psychological profiler, are we?’ the chief inspector said with a sigh, looking at his watch. ‘Ready for
the PM? If we’re lucky we might get a cup of Colin’s Earl Grey … which is a darned sight better than this muck.’ He tapped
the empty plastic cup before picking it up and flinging it contemptuously into the waste bin.

Tradmouth Hospital was within walking distance of the police station and Wesley was glad of the exercise. It was another fine
day – the sixth in succession – and the river was teeming with yachts, their sails raised to take advantage of the breeze.
Gerry Heffernan gazed at the scene longingly: Charles Marrick’s
murder meant that it would probably be a while before he had the chance to take the
Rosie May
out to sea again.

When the two men arrived at the hospital mortuary, they pushed open the swinging clear plastic doors and made for Colin’s
office. He was expecting them.

As usual they were greeted with offers of tea and biscuits and polite enquiries about their health and that of their respective
families. To someone who didn’t know Colin well, it might seem as though he was touting for business, like an undertaker instinctively
noting a new acquaintance’s height and build. But the two policemen had known the pathologist long enough to know that the
enquiries were made out of genuine concern. Colin seemed particularly interested in Sam Heffernan’s new job. It turned out
that he knew the senior partner at the Cornvale Veterinary Clinic quite well – Heffernan had observed more than once that
the professional men of Tradmouth had their own version of the Mafia.