Unlikely Graves (Detective Inspector Paul Amos Mystery series) (12 page)

Chapter 31

Again, there was a catch in Mrs Gordon’s throat as a long period of self-composure broke momentarily. Again she recovered after a few seconds of silence. This time George Gudgeon thought better of intervening and getting a flea in his ear.

‘In your own time, Mrs Gordon,’ Amos eventually said in a gentle, sympathetic tone, ‘I’d like to ask you about events after the weekend. What happened when it became apparent that Rita had not arrived safely in Cambridge?’

Gordon remained silent for a few more seconds but it was clear that she would be ready to continue soon enough. There was no rush, Amos thought. Better to coax her along gently when she faltered and let her flow when she wanted to.

Sergeant Swift shifted slightly in her chair. It was almost imperceptible, as was the quick glance that Amos shot at her.

Swift’s interrogation methods were much more direct and confrontational. She found the slower, indirect methods of Amos somewhat frustrating. However, she continued the silence that she had maintained throughout the interview so far. She knew how Amos hated to be interrupted when he interviewed witnesses and suspects.

Other inspectors whom Swift had worked with welcomed questions from their sergeants. Indeed, they often preferred to let the sergeant lead, finding it less exciting. Or they played ‘good cop, bad cop’.

Two brains were better than one, Swift believed. A sergeant or even a constable might see a chink in the armour of an obdurate interviewee, throwing him or her off guard. Amos, however, was quite adamant that unless he looked directly at you to indicate he had run out of ideas, you sat there and left him to it.

Swift sometimes thought that she was sitting there just for form’s sake, because you always had two police officers present.

The Chief Constable, who took little interest in the detail of police work, expected it, mainly so that suspects would find it harder to claim that they had been intimidated or offered inducements alone in the interview room. This was not so that justice would be done but so that the force would not be hit with expensive law suits.

Amos was quite willing to turn a blind eye to rules when he wanted but was careful not to break them when there was nothing to be gained by incurring the wrath of the Chief Constable.

‘I didn’t know about it until I saw the reconstruction on Look North – you know, the bit where Brad and someone pretending to be Rita walked the route to the station,’ Mrs Gordon finally replied. I had gone to see my sister in Aberystwyth that Monday and stayed there for the week. I should have caught the train on the Saturday but Brad was so insistent that I joined him on the Sunday that I put it back a couple of days. Likewise I didn’t return until the following Monday instead of the Saturday. I was furious with Brad for not ringing and letting me know. I don’t take the Lincolnshire Echo so I hadn’t read about Rita and I didn’t keep in touch with John so he hadn’t told me either. I suppose he assumed that Brad had told me. He must have thought it strange that I didn’t turn up for the reconstruction to offer support.’

‘Surely the police interviewed you?’ Amos asked incredulously.

‘Not until I contacted them after the reconstruction. Brad hadn’t told them about the Sunday evening. They didn’t know about it until John told them, and that was ages afterwards because they couldn’t track him down. He’d gone off himself on the Monday on a consultancy with some chemical firm in Cheshire without leaving proper word with anyone. His father had no idea where he was. I gather they didn’t speak much. I actually found myself in the same police station as Brad but they wouldn’t let me see him. I suppose they didn’t want us to coordinate our stories in case one of us was responsible for Rita’s disappearance.

Anyway, I gave my story of the events on that Sunday night, though I admit I held back the bit about expecting some piece of mega news from Brad that never materialized. I didn’t want them putting pressure on Brad, he had enough to cope with. I wanted to wait at the station for Brad but they said they were keeping him in overnight and had the right to do so. When I went back next morning they said they had released him on police bail. He wasn’t at his flat and then he just disappeared.’

‘You didn’t report him missing, though?’ Amos asked with just a hint of reproach.

‘Just a minute,’ Mrs Gordon said indignantly, rising to the bait. ‘I didn’t know he wouldn’t show up again. Not at the time. In any case, the police knew he had disappeared. That’s why they were asking me if I knew where he had gone to. There was no need to report him missing. I told them he’d probably gone off with Rita, which is what I believed anyway – and still do to this day. The police just said to let them know if he turned up again.’

‘Didn’t your father know where he had gone?’ Amos asked. ‘Or your other brother?’

Gordon looked surprised.

‘Dad didn’t know, either, and I don’t have another brother.’

Amos leaned forward over the desk.

He said quietly and deliberately: ‘The upstairs tenants at Bradley’s house said they saw his father and brother helping him move his stuff.’

Gordon leaned backwards to restore the distance between herself and the detective inspector. She smiled for a moment and relaxed visibly. Then she replied more slowly, choosing her words more carefully.

‘Dad never mentioned that he had helped Brad to move his stuff and obviously I never asked him because I didn’t know he had. The other guy must have been one of Brad’s mates.’

‘Did your father never refer to your brother’s disappearance or ask if you had heard from him?’

‘No. Dad suffered a stroke soon afterwards. I think the stress killed him. He died without ever fully recovering his speech.’

Chapter 32

At this point Gudgeon saw an opportunity to wrap up proceedings before his client imparted any more information.

‘I think that covers everything, inspector,’ he said in a businesslike manner as he rose to his feet. ‘I think you’ll agree that Mrs Gordon has been more than helpful.’

‘We haven’t quite finished, yet, Mr Gudgeon,’ Amos said coldly. ‘I just want to ask Mrs Gordon about Harry Randall while she is here.’

Mrs Gordon’s face dropped and Gudgeon was also caught off guard.

‘Did you ever meet him before Rita disappeared?’ Amos pressed his advantage.

‘I never really met him at all,’ Mrs Gordon replied flustered.

Tired of intervening only to be slapped down each time, for once Gudgeon made no attempt to ride to his client’s rescue.

‘Well then, did you ever see him before Rita disappeared,’ Amos persisted.

‘No, never,’ Gordon replied with a little too much emphasis.

‘And after Rita disappeared?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’

‘You suppose so? Did you or didn’t you?’

Amos was now leaning forward, looking intently at the woman directly across the table. She was clearly uneasy and glanced momentarily at her solicitor but still Gudgeon held his peace as if to teach her a lesson.

‘Well, I saw him after my interview at the police station,’ she replied testily. ‘They wouldn’t let me see my own brother but they did let me bump into Harry Randall on the way out. I think they did it on purpose to see what happened.’

‘And what did happen?’

‘Randall had the nerve to accuse me and Brad of driving away his daughter. He said we had poisoned her mind against him and had been spreading rumours that he had interfered with her when she was younger. I told him not to be so stupid but I wasn’t going to have a row with him on the police station steps for the amusement of the very officers who had failed to find any trace of her. He shouted abuse at me but I just walked away.’

‘Did you see him again during the inquiry?’ Amos asked.

‘No.’

‘Or later, after the inquiry went cold?’

‘No, definitely not,’ came the emphatic response.

Only now did Amos look across at Swift to see if she had any ideas for pursuing the interview. Swift, however, felt that interviewing with Amos was like her and Jason packing a suitcase: there was his way and her way and once one had started it was impossible for the other to take over half way through.

‘Just one last question,’ Amos said impulsively. ‘Where were you last Thursday, the day that Harry Randall was murdered?’

This was a step too far for Gudgeon, who suddenly burst back into life.

‘You can’t seriously suspect Mrs Gordon,’ he uttered indignantly. ‘You’ve just heard, she didn’t even know the man.’

‘Then she will have a perfectly innocent account of her movements,’ Amos replied calmly.

‘As it happens, I was visiting my sister again,’ Mrs Gordon said smoothly. ‘You can have her name and telephone number if you want to check. I was there all last week.’

Amos pushed a pen and paper across to her. Somewhat miffed, she wrote down the contact details.

‘Thank you, Mrs Gordon, for your cooperation.’ Amos said reluctantly. ‘Would you like us to run you back home?’

George Gudgeon broke his resumed sullen silence.

‘That’s quite all right, inspector,’ he said coldly. ‘I’ll take care of Mrs Gordon.’

As solicitor and client left the police HQ, Amos could hear George Gudgeon complaining to Mrs Gordon: ‘I thought you needed me here to stop the inspector asking too many questions. I can’t help you if you don’t help me.’

Chapter 33

‘So much for the two geegees,’ Amos remarked as he bustled back to his office with Det Sgt Swift hurrying to keep up in his wake.

‘What on earth are you on about?’ Swift asked irritably.

‘Gemma Gordon and George Gudgeon. GG and GG. More donkeys than thoroughbreds.’

By now they were back in the CID room.

‘Listen up everyone,’ Amos ordered. ‘Who’s seen anything in the Rita Randall files about Gemma Irwin?’

Detective Constable Eddie Griffin, the baby of the team in age and length of service, waved his hand like a schoolboy in class. Swift thought he was actually going to say ‘Please, sir’.

Instead, Griffin said: ‘There’s a transcript of an interview several days after the disappearance but it doesn’t amount to much. It was quite a bit after. She said she had seen Rita together with her own brother and Rita’s the night before the disappearance but nothing that indicated why Rita vanished.’

‘Does it say why she didn’t come forward sooner?’ Amos asked.

‘She was staying with some relative and didn’t know about it,’ Griffin replied, fishing into the files on his desk at the same time. ‘It was a sister or aunt somewhere in Wales, I think. Yes, here it is,’ he went on triumphantly pulling out the relevant paperwork. ‘Her sister in Aberystwyth.’

‘Was her story checked out?’

‘I don’t think so, sir.’ Griffin glanced down the single sheet of paper. ‘It doesn’t even give the sister’s name and address.’

‘Hmm,’ said Amos. ‘Keep on looking.’

With that he retired to his room, which he used for very little except to make telephone calls he did not want the rest of the staff to hear. He dialed the retired Inspector Winchester, who answered after just one ring.

‘Winchester,’ came the brusque response.

‘Amos.’

‘I thought it might be. I didn’t think you’d have had done yet.’

‘Gemma Gordon, Bradley Irwin’s sister.’

‘I know who she is. I spent enough time on the bloody case. I even went to her wedding in case Bradley Irwin or Rita Randall turned up. No such luck.’

‘Did you spend any time checking whether she really went to Aberystwyth.’

‘Of course not,’ Winchester responded aggressively. ‘She had nothing much to do with anything. In any case, she went to her sister’s after Rita boarded her train so if she had anything to do with it, which she plainly didn’t, her sister couldn’t have provided an alibi anyway.’

‘Unless Gemma Gordon took Rita to Aberystwyth with her,’ Amos commented. He was rewarded with an audible sharp intake of breath from the other end of the phone line.

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Winchester blustered.

‘Quite so,’ Amos said abruptly. ‘Sorry to bother you again.’

With that he rang off and dialled Mrs Gordon’s sister.

This call was answered with only a little less alacrity, though with a little more breathlessness, than the one to Winchester. It’s my lucky day, thought Amos – or perhaps Gemma Gordon had alerted her sister. She might just have had time to get home by bombing down the A15.

Amos introduced himself and apologized for ringing, stressing that it was purely a routine matter and that there was nothing to worry about.

‘Yes, that’s quite all right,’ said the cultured voice at the other end.

‘Am I speaking to the sister of Mrs Gemma Gordon, who lives at Waddington near Lincoln?’ Amos inquired.

‘That’s correct.’

‘I understand that Mrs Gordon visits you from time to time.’

‘That is also correct. She usually comes on her own once or twice in the summer when her husband is working and occasionally they both come at Christmas.’

It all seemed too pat to Amos, as if this had been rehearsed. And why was this woman not asking what the questions were all about?

He asked: ‘May I ask when she last visited, either with or without her husband?’

‘Yes, I have the dates here,’ came the immediate response. Mrs Gordon’s sister readily reeled off the full week in which Harry Randall had been murdered.

‘Did she leave Aberystwyth at all that week?’

‘No, she was here all the time.’

‘Did she or your brother Bradley Irwin ever mention a young woman by the name of Rita Randall?’

‘Yes, of course. She was the daughter of that man who was found murdered the last time that Gemma was here. Gemma said Brad was rather sweet on her. In fact, Gemma delayed her visit the weekend the girl went off without telling anyone where she was going. But Gemma couldn’t have had anything to do with her disappearance because she set off for Aberystwyth by the early train on the Monday.’

‘Did you meet her at the station at your end?’

‘Yes, I always do.’

‘Was anyone with her? Did she speak to anyone as she left the train? A travelling companion, perhaps?’

‘No, she was on her own, of course. She wouldn’t speak to strangers on a train.’

‘I must ask you this bluntly,’ Amos persisted. ‘Was Rita Randall with her?’

‘Good lord, no,’ Mrs Gordon’s sister gasped. That was one question she had not expected. ‘Of course, she … she could have been on the train, I … I wouldn’t know. I can’t remember who else might have got off, it was all so long ago.’

Amos thanked the woman for her cooperation and rang off. He walked thoughtfully to the door of his room and spent some time talking to Jennifer, who had a hobby of collecting obscure books connected with Lincolnshire. It was too much to hope that she would have a set of train timetables dating back 15 years but she did have something near enough to what Amos wanted.

As a result, he spent some time poring over columns of figures, making careful mathematical calculations on a notepad.