Burying the Past Read online

  ‘Only because you’d had measles or something and your mum was worried about you catching your death. Didn’t I tie a hot-water bottle on your back?’

  ‘Don’t remember that. I just remember being cold. My hands were so cold it was hard to fit the locos on the track.’

  Mark risked one more push. ‘You see, it’s not just half of my life that’s in that house. It’s half of yours. Have you been in there yet?’ he asked at last.

  Dave drew breath again, but exhaled slowly. At last he said slowly, ‘I almost believe you. I’m this far from it.’ He held thumb and finger a millimetre apart. ‘But then, I believed what Sammie was saying. I’ll go see her again, I guess. This time I’ll insist we meet at the house, whatever she says. I’ll try to talk to Lloyd, too.’

  Mark could hardly believe his ears. ‘You will? Dave, what can I say?’

  But Dave was on his feet. ‘I guess you’ll have plenty of time to work that out.’

  Fran thought that breaking pretty well every rule in the book was worth it just to see the expression on Alice’s face as they left the building. Their first port of call was the vicarage that had replaced their rectory as the incumbent’s abode. It was a smallish detached sixties house, with a flat-roofed garage alongside. The big windows probably made it hell to heat. The garden seemed to be given over to vegetables – presumably, he encouraged his runner beans in a different way from Marion Lovage.

  ‘The Reverend Peter Bulleid,’ Fran said, deciphering the tiny scrap of paper crumpled into the slot in the electric bell-push. ‘How do I address him, Alice?’

  ‘Plain Mister, I think. Is he related to the railway engineer?’

  ‘Railway engineer?’

  ‘He designed locomotives. My brother’s a railway buff,’ she explained, almost apologetically, pressing the doorbell again. ‘You know, I don’t think there’s anyone at home.’

  ‘He’s deaf,’ Fran said, inclined to be dismissive of such frailty, but remembering with a pang that Mark’s hearing was no longer as acute as it should be. Lesson one for those contemplating retirement, she told herself: don’t sneer at age-related problems. Reaching for a business card to pop through the letters flap, she printed a request to contact her about Marion Lovage on the back. No one could say she wasn’t being upfront this time.

  Or when she called at the back door of the Three Tuns. She greeted Ollie with a flash of her ID and a clear introduction to Alice, specifying that she wasn’t an officer but was a colleague with experience in dealing with the elderly. Alice turned not so much as a hair at Fran’s lie – perhaps she considered her job gave her the requisite skills and patience. ‘How would you feel about us talking to your father?’ Fran asked. ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be present. We just want his memories of Dr Lovage, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ll phone my mum,’ Ollie said, digging in his pocket for his phone and walking towards a stack of logs. ‘Signal’s best here,’ he said over his shoulder.

  Alice turned to face the sun, as if warmth on her face was a new experience. ‘This is such a treat, Fran. Takes your mind off redundancy, at least.’

  ‘Redundancy? You? Over my dead body, Alice.’

  ‘It’s just a general warning as yet. But – you know what – if I had a halfway decent deal offered I might take it. A lot of us would. I know you officers deal with dreadful stuff face to face, but we get the fallout, if you see what I mean. And maybe I’m young enough to retrain.’

  ‘As?’

  ‘God knows, to be frank. What can women do these days? Go to uni? End up with a debt like a millstone and a job in a bar instead of at the Bar?’

  ‘Quite.’ And there she had the luxury of making a choice. At the moment, at least.

  Ollie sauntered back, but he was shaking his head. ‘According to Mum, he doesn’t know his arse from his elbow today. But if you like I can give her your number so she can call you when he’s a bit more with us.’

  Fran handed over her card. ‘We’ll be there if we can. Thanks. We don’t want to distress him, you know, or your mother. Actually, wouldn’t your mother have known Dr Lovage as well as, if not better than, your father? WI and church flowers and so on?’

  Ollie blinked. ‘Good point. Never thought of that.’ Without being asked, he returned to the log-stack. He was back almost immediately. ‘He’s just shat himself. Don’t worry, I’ll give her your number when it’s a better time.’

  They walked back to Fran’s car in silence.

  ‘Is police work always like this? A series of no-shows?’ Alice asked.

  ‘All too often. That’s why we usually send a PC – cheaper. But to be honest, I was bored out of my skull and I thought you were looking a bit peaky . . . Is it just the threat of redundancy or—?’

  ‘I’m fine, Fran. Just the usual things. Money; food; school uniforms. We didn’t manage a holiday, that was a problem – and I suppose on a day like this you want to skive. So this has been great. Even if we didn’t achieve anything.’

  Fran looked at her watch. ‘Ollie doesn’t do midday food, but I bet we can find a place that does. My treat. Come on.’

  EIGHTEEN

  A flurry of texts and emails, ably assisted by the wasps that bombarded their rickety table, drew their lunch to an end. So much for their rural idyll.

  The most interesting message was from Kim, who’d used her M20 imprisonment to good effect and organized a slot on the evening’s local TV news to appeal for information about Frank Grange’s last known activities. The programme, she added, probably wouldn’t allow them enough time to ask about Dr Lovage, but she’d do her best to talk them into it. Did Fran have any preferences for an officer to front the piece?

  Which was a tactful way of asking if Fran wanted to do it herself, of course.

  Y not U? Fran texted back. Go 4 it. Then she added a stream of instructions about setting up a team to answer what she hoped would be a deluge of responses, though she suspected at best there’d be no more than a thin trickle. But she did worry that the dead case should take precedence over one that was very much alive, and so, using the hands-free phone, she called Don to ask how things were moving.

  ‘Still no ID on our victim; still no sighting of the alleged killer, Cynd.’

  ‘Do you think it’s time to find some funds for facial reconstruction people? So we can get the public at large involved? Someone must know his face, for goodness’ sake.’

  ‘Ma’am, has anyone ever told you you’re an angel?’

  ‘You’d better wait to see how much I can find before you ask that.’

  She’d barely sat down at her much tidier desk than there was a call from reception. Someone described doubtfully as a young person was asking for her by name. Cynd! It must be Cynd! Should she call for backup to make sure Cynd didn’t get away? But she didn’t want her scared by a sudden inrush of officers intent – rightly – on arresting her. So she hurtled down the corridors, bouncing down the stairs in case the delay would so put Cynd off that she stomped away.

  It wasn’t Cynd, however. It was another young woman, dressed in a retro summer’s dress, which looked as if it was genuine fifties, not this season’s homage. She greeted Fran with confidence, shaking hands firmly and with the sort of smile that suggested that she could help Fran, and not vice versa.

  ‘Lina Townend, of Tripp and Townend, Antiques,’ she said, producing a business card. ‘I’m the divvy – the diviner – that Caffy said you wanted,’ she added.

  ‘Well I’m blowed,’ Fran declared. ‘I was expecting—’ And perhaps should have waited for Bruce Farfrae to contact her.

  ‘A tweedy old man with a shock of white hair and an overused twig? Sorry. Even my partner, Griff Tripp, doesn’t look like that. Now,’ she continued with the air of someone for whom time was money, ‘I understand you have some furniture you can’t open and that someone wants to force.’

  ‘It’s in our evidence store. There’s a procedure to ID you and put you through security. I can’t pretend it
’s anything other than tedious, but I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Of course. I’ve got a couple of friends who are police officers – DCI Webb, whom you probably know. I’m sure Freya’ll vouch for me, though she’s on maternity leave. And then there’s DCI Morris, once of the Met but currently on secondment to Interpol,’ she added with a slight change of voice that made Fran wonder about the backstory. ‘And I believe that you know Bruce Farfrae, though he’s left the police and is busily coining money in the US. He emailed me last night to ask if I could help you; he sends his apologies for not getting back to you earlier, but he was on his way back from Afghanistan – antiquities thefts.’

  Fran was horribly aware that she was letting the conversation run away from her. She grasped at part of it as she led the girl out of reception into the body of the building. ‘Tell me how Freya is,’ she said. ‘And then I must find a photographer and someone from the team investigating the case this is relevant to.’ She paused, embarrassed. ‘Do you need special equipment or anything? A darkened room?’

  The girl threw her head back and laughed. ‘It’s not witchcraft, Ms Harman. Sometimes it’s easier if I sit quietly on my own, but I’m not into what my partner calls jiggery-pokery.’

  ‘Come and sit in the office the secretaries use: they can organize a cup of tea while I deal with the formalities.’

  Wren sat – dared Mark allow himself to use the word perched?– behind a vast new desk, which suggested a permanence about his appointment that made Mark suddenly and quite deeply resentful, as if he’d been usurped, and hadn’t flatly declined the offer of temporary upgrading for himself. As for a chair for Mark himself, there was no sign of one.

  Wren was tapping something – a small sheaf of papers – on his desk. Mark had an idea that the finger doing the tapping had been manicured. Fran would have asked reasonably why it shouldn’t have been; Mark merely found it something else to loathe.

  But not as much as being kept standing like a naughty schoolboy. He looked round for a chair and dragged it forward, sitting and ostentatiously crossing his legs and then, as Wren raised an eyebrow in his direction, his arms. ‘You sent for me, sir?’ he asked, not quite insolently.

  The finger moved to the TV remote. ‘This is not a good situation, Turner. Deal with it.’ Wren seemed to signal that the interview was over by leaning forward and moving his mouse, eyes now fixed to the new computer screen.

  ‘To what situation do you refer, sir?’ But even as he framed the question as pedantically as he could, he knew – with an absolute certainty – that it must be something to do with Sammie, Dave and the house in Loose.

  Wren pressed the zapper, clicking the mouse with the other hand. ‘As I said, deal with it.’ Not quite yawning with boredom, Wren picked up his mobile, not even bothering to look at the images he’d summoned up.

  Kim was all bustle and stir, finding forms and documents Fran didn’t know even existed – not bad for a woman who’d just arrived in the force. Ten out of ten for homework. She even wanted the Townend girl’s prints and DNA, but received such a hostile look from the girl that she dropped the suggestion, coming up with protective clothing and gloves. ‘Everything in here is covered by surveillance cameras,’ she said. ‘Do you want to come to the loo to change?’

  Lina Townend flickered an ironic glance at Fran: this wasn’t sitting quietly on her own, was it? At last she said, but with an amused edge to her voice, ‘Just now I need peace and quiet. Could you clear the room? Ms Harman may stay.’

  Kim huffed and puffed her way out.

  ‘Such busyness.’ Townend sighed. ‘OK, let the dog see the rabbit. What do you want me to check first?’

  Fran shrugged. ‘You’re in charge. But I’m most interested in that lovely desk and the very complicated cabinet. In particular, accessing the cabinet’s compartments. And of course, we’ve no key.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s a matter of knowing where to look,’ Townend said quietly. ‘Sometimes,’ she added more ominously, ‘it’s a matter of waiting for the piece to tell you what it wants you to know.’

  Fran managed not to scream. Possibly because the young woman had been reassuringly professional so far, this sudden attack of feyness seemed all the worse. As quietly as she could she slipped out of the store and returned with two stacking chairs. They might not be Hepplewhite, but at least both she and Townend could listen to the other furniture in comfort. To assist even further, she switched off her mobile.

  But Townend, now changed, despite the cameras, into her paper suit with her pretty little dress slung on one of Lovage’s chairs, was already absorbed in conversation with the writing desk. Fran was about to point out they’d already had the main drawer out and found nothing at all, as if had been thoroughly valeted, when as if from nowhere Townend was flourishing a tiny key. From somewhere came the image of Alice in Wonderland. Had the Tenniel illustration had Alice on one knee? It certainly wouldn’t have had her lying on her stomach and then on her back inspecting a desk.

  ‘It’s a very fine piece,’ she declared. ‘As I told you, I’m no expert when it comes to furniture, but I’d have thought you were looking at three or four thousand for this.’ She came up to sitting position with an ease Fran envied. ‘But I’m damned if I can find anywhere to fit this key.’

  ‘But – didn’t you bring the key with you?’

  Townend laughed. ‘Why would I do that? No, it was in the desk. In the drawer.’

  ‘But my forensic colleagues . . .’ Fran stopped. She didn’t think this young woman would relish the words practically took it to pieces any more than Caffy would have done.

  ‘Just didn’t know where to look, that’s all. I don’t like to sound like some children’s author talking about secret drawers, but often furniture has a drawer or cupboard within another in which to conceal especially precious items. Look, I’ll show you.’ Standing, she leant inside the drawer, putting her hand right to the back. ‘Put your hand where mine was, reach up and press. There.’ She beamed at Fran’s startled face.

  ‘Well, I’m blowed. Amazing. Thank you very much.’

  ‘Don’t thank me till I’ve done the rest of the job – and found what this little chap belongs to.’ She waggled the key.

  ‘I shall certainly thank you then.’ As they started to strip the bubble wrap from Lovage’s other pieces, she asked, ‘Do you get asked to do this sort of thing very often?’

  ‘This is the first time. Sometimes I get asked to tell an owner if a piece is genuine. Mostly I’m just a common or garden antiques dealer.’

  Fran shook her head: there was nothing either common or garden about her. ‘How can you tell if a piece is genuine?’

  ‘How good’s your hearing? Can you tell if someone’s off-pitch? Because that’s what it’s like for me. First of all I know, then I look for reasons why I know. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Possibly. I think coppers have an equivalent nose.’

  ‘Good coppers,’ Townend agreed darkly. ‘Now, how about this chiffonier?’

  ‘Why that?’ Fran wanted to get on to the cabinet.

  ‘Because if I’m right, we’re part of a game of hide and seek. One piece will lead to another. And the chiffonier’s got drawers and cupboards for concealing the next clue. Now, will our little key work on that lock?’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit of a long shot?’

  ‘Not really, because at that period there weren’t too many variants in keys – not so many Burglar Bills around, plus maybe the servants were afraid lightning would strike them if they nicked anything. Here you go.’

  Fran took the tiny key and tried it in the drawer. It turned easily. ‘Heavens, it might have been made for the lock.’ Her face fell. The drawer was empty, even to Townend’s experienced search. Likewise the cupboard underneath. ‘But clearly it wasn’t.’ She waggled it in despair.

  ‘But she wouldn’t have concealed this key for nothing, would she?’ Clearly, Townend was entering into the spirit of things. She flicked a smile
at Fran. ‘Deduction, of course – nothing to do with intuition or dowsing. Let’s see if there’s anything here – yes!’ She turned the drawer over to reveal another key taped to the underside. ‘Someone was enjoying this. Even misleading us, maybe.’ She pointed to the key Fran was fingering resentfully. ‘What was the name Bruce gave me? Dr Lovelace?’

  ‘Not Lovelace. Lovage.’

  ‘Right. Dr Lovage. Did he make a living setting crosswords or something?’

  ‘She. She was a teacher when she lived round here. Caffy’s probably told you we bought her old house.’

  Townend shook her head. ‘Caffy just told me that there was a job and that I should contact you. She’s not one for gossip. Professional to her fingertips, as I’m sure you know.’ Her sudden frown was almost forbidding. ‘Anyway, let’s move on to the next part of the puzzle. What does this little beauty fit?’ She flourished the latest key.

  In his situation, Mark would probably have been as annoyed as Wren had been: a TV news item putting your immediate second-in-command in a very poor light was the last thing you wanted when you were trying to feel your way into your post. With every journalistic cliché played for all it was worth, Mark was depicted as an arch villain, intent on evicting an innocent young woman, pregnant with his own grandchild, from her own home, while he basked at his ease in a sprawling Kentish mansion with a woman described as a live-in lover.

  Unable to reach Fran – where the hell was she, with her phone switched off? – he called Ms Rottweiler, but could only leave a message. He was on the verge of calling Dave to demand to know his part in this travesty of the truth, when there was a knock on his door. His summons was peremptory, at very least, but Cosmo Dix, the strangest head of Human Resources he’d ever met, but no less admired and held in affection for that, came in as if assured of a welcome.

  ‘Darling Mark, I know, I know. And I know I’m not really PR, but the poor loves over there are all at sixes and sevens. Redundancies . . . Anyway, worry not: we can deal with this. Fire with fire, dear boy.’