by Adam Melrose
Chapter 11
Everyone had passed a pleasant evening, and breakfast was an equally social affair. They all ate at one of the tables in a bay window overlooking the lake.
As everything work wise had been discussed on the previous night, the conversation was light and consisted of pointless, but pleasant chat. It was the perfect antidote to the previous heavy couple of days, and the morning’s meal passed quickly.
It had been decided that Bella would return to London. Ava and Norton would work from the hotel, researching into where Pete was supposed to be working. They would also see what they could discover about his employer.
Ava gave Bella a lift to Kemble railway station. They walked towards the Range Rover. Bella smiled, ‘Are we going in the Nobility Scooter then?’
Ava let out a loud laugh, ‘The what?’
Bella explained, ‘A friend of mine has a habit of renaming things for fun. She decided to re-name Range Rover’s as Nobility Scooters on account of their heritage of shipping posh folk about. I thought it was funny, and so it’s kind of stuck in my head.’
Ava laughed, ‘I think that will stick in my head now.
Within the hour, Ava had dropped a happy Bella off at the station, and then returned to the hotel, joined Norton, and began their research.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team were heading towards Nalebury Park to see what they could discover. They were looking for something that might explain Pete’s regular presence sixty-five miles in the wrong direction from where he officially worked.
Matt started the car, and before long they were rolling out the car park. They headed towards Cirencester.
‘So Matt, what’s the plan?’
Matt glanced into the rear-view mirror whilst talking to Max.
‘I think we’ll drive as close as we can; have a look around, and if we can see any livestock, we’ll use our old ‘Just trying to find the farmer to let them know their sheep are loose.’ trick to justify a preliminary snoop around the manor, then go from there. You guys alright with that?’
Max, Bruno and Joe all nodded. It was only twenty minutes before they found themselves on the road heading towards the manor. The fields left and right contained exactly what the three had hoped they would. They contained sheep.
Matt turned the Audi up the narrowing road towards the manor. They arrived at a set of grand and extremely tall stone pillars. A set of equally large wrought iron gates sat open; their black and gold paint steaming in the morning sun, the early morning dew evaporating. Chiselled into the stone on one of the pillars were the words Nalebury Park.
They drove through, and on up the drive; gravel now crunching under the wheels. The enclosed feeling from the tall hedges on the side of the road gave way to a large sweeping lawn that rolled down towards fields. In front of them sat a large stone manor house. Everything was well manicured. They pulled up outside the front door. Matt hopped out and put on a colourful plastic coat he kept for such occasions. The idea was to look as much from the town as possible, so hopefully look the part of a concerned tourist when coming face to face with the landowner.
That was not to be the case on this occasion though. Four separate doorbell presses over a five minute period brought absolutely no one to the door. He nodded back towards the car and headed off around the side of the house. Arriving in the courtyard at the back of the building, the neatness continued. The concrete standing was brushed clean, the gravel was raked in circles and up against the garage wall, logs and blocks of peat were stored in neat, methodical rows. Again though, there was no sign of life. Some moments later he was back, removing his bright coloured coat and getting in the car.
‘Well that was a busted flush.’
Joe was leaning forward from his back seat, ‘Nothing at all, no one about?’
Matt shook his head looking at the three of them in turn.
‘Quiet as the grave, very odd.’
Bruno chipped in next, ‘What shall we do now then?’
His question had been loosely directed at Matt, but it was Max who answered it.
‘There’s a pub up the road, perhaps we should go there; always a good place for a fact finding mission. I have cash, so we can be anonymous.’
Matt started the car, headed back down to the main road and with directions from Max; they were soon outside the pub. The pub was not yet open. Bruno hopped out and went over to find out when it would be. They would have forty-five minutes to wait. As Bruno walked back towards the car, a metallic creak came from above. Looking up, he saw the pub sign was swaying gently in the breeze; in old English font it had the words, The Wellspring written large.
When the landlord opened up; Matt, Joe, Max and Bruno made sure they were loudly talking about how much they had enjoyed their walking holiday so far. From the table they had taken over, Bruno suggested that they should go back to that big looking house and take some photographs. Other customers had also arrived at the pub despite the early hour, and the team’s hope was that some of them were locals, who might hear what they were saying and comment. That particular ploy had worked before. They were in luck this time too; an elderly gentleman, already installed at the bar swung round and advised them most earnestly, that they should not do that.
Seizing the moment, Matt got up to get in a round of drinks, making sure to include their potential information source. To Matt’s delight he accepted not only his offer of a drink, but also the invitation to join them at their table. Matt felt it would be worthwhile trying to make the man as welcome as possible. He risked pushing things too far by suggesting food to the others, who intuitively knew to agree; however little hunger they were experiencing. As he arrived at the table with the tray of drinks, Matt caught the eye of a short, elderly lady who looked exhausted and had just come out of the kitchen.
‘Can I ask, where would I get some lunch menus from?’
The woman looked up at him; her face broke into a warm smile.
‘I’ll bring some over in a moment sir, five for lunch is it?’
‘Thanks that would be great. Yes five.’
The pub was cosy and welcoming. It had been freshly decorated.
Over the next hour, the team played their roles of innocent ramblers and managed to extract some gossip about the owners up at the manor. It largely backed up what the girl at the hotel had said in reference to lack of popularity and unpleasantness; but some extra gaps were filled in. Most importantly, they learned the owner’s name was Evelyn de Varley. He owned the manor, the pub, several houses, several cottages and about four hundred acres of the surrounding land. He very rarely came to the pub though.
The team had learned early on that their new friend was known as Old Fred. There was no sign of New Fred though, as Bruno ran through the options of who that might be.
Fred, now liberated from any verbal restraint, thanks to the several pints he had consumed, confirmed only that he recognised Pete by description, and had seen him from across the lawns a couple of times at the manor. He had then moved on to some irrelevant personal revelations about Mr de Varley. It turned out Old Pete worked for two and a half days a week in the grounds. Today was his half day, he worked in the afternoon. Fred had started at the manor as a boy, and had been kept on by Mr de Varley when he had purchased the place back in the eighties.
The conversation continued to reveal how little the man was liked locally. Old Fred was about to continue when the waitress returned to clear the plates. She spoke before Fred could.
‘Come on now Fred, we best not speak ill of the landlord, and your boss. We are in his pub after all. Hadn’t you better be getting to work?’
Fred bowed his head and went very quiet, ‘Yes um.’
Feeling slightly guilty, Matt and the team offered to drive Fred back to the manor and one of them would follow in his car. Fred was very grateful for this offer and once Matt settled the bill they all got up to leave.
The waitress appeared from the Kitchen and came over.
‘Come on Fr
ed, I will drive you to work. This lot will get you fired.’ She then led Fred out into the car park.
The team left the pub and wandered across the car park and sat at a couple of tables. Matt spoke first, ‘So what have we learned?’
‘We’ve found out the owner’s name, what he does, and the fact he is not liked much by the locals we’ve met so far. We’ve also found out that someone who works in the grounds has seen Pete a few times, but has not confirmed he works at Nalebury Park.’
Joe gave a slight nod.
‘Yes well we’re further on than we were, but still no clear explanation of why Pete was up here so often, and no proof he worked for Mr Evelyn de Varley.’
Matt walked towards the car.
‘Let’s go back to the hotel, meet up with Ava and Norton, and discuss where we are with all this.
Chapter 12
Matt managed to get hold of a whiteboard on wheels from the hotel’s conference room.
‘Right, so let’s just have a re-cap on where we are, and what we know.’
The marker pen protested in a squeaky fashion as Matt jotted down a summary of where the case was so far.
Matt spoke as he wrote.
‘We have a death ruled as misadventure that only the deceased’s spouse seems to disagree with. We have some oddities that might suggest something is afoot; namely missing tattoos, though that might now have been explained. An odd conversation with a reference to underworld, someone found dead miles from anywhere they have any business being, and a crime scene that might have been tampered with on two separate occasions. None of these on their own prove anything; but taken together as a whole, it certainly points to the beginnings of a possible alternative explanation for what happened to Pete.
‘We have the tattoo’s explained, is everyone happy with what Mark said?’
Bruno pointed out that you could buy novelty tattoo sleeves that looked believable until closely examined. He added that it was not much of a leap to believe that someone with Pete’s apparent talents could perfect the design so that even when close, it was difficult to tell they were fake. Everyone accepted the tattoos had simply dissolved from their extended time in the water, so ultimately offered no clue as to how Pete died.
Matt paused for a second before continuing with the next subject. ‘OK, I don’t think we can do anything with the underworld conversation just yet. I am guessing no one has had any thoughts in that direction?’
Everyone intimated that they had no ideas on that for now.
Matt moved on, ‘Ava, what did you and Norton manage to find out about where Pete worked?’
Ava put down her glass, ‘We didn’t find out anything conclusive, but the company that is listed as Pete’s employer is definitely not a UK based business. It’s an offshore company based out of the Cayman Islands.’
Matt turned to face Ava, ‘How does that work from an employment perspective for a UK resident? Do we know?’
‘No, it’s not the easiest set of rules to clarify for sure without consulting an accountant; but I spoke to Bella, and she said Pete was definitely employed through a UK employment agency, which to my mind would get around any legal issues.’
‘Ah OK, that makes sense. What else did you find?’
‘His ultimate employer, Towers & Hurst has no UK offices, and there is certainly nothing around Reading, but there is a private residence near Reading called Hurst Towers. That ties in with what DCI Stimpson said. Remember he explained Matt was working for security, guarding a country house. There is no large business there though, so he can’t have been guarding anything else. I initially thought the similar name was just a coincidence. It was only luck I found it. Someone has had it removed from the maps.’
Joe looked surprised, ‘You can do that?’
‘It’s not easy to make an existing house disappear. From what I can understand, it means someone would have had to mislead the relevant government bodies. I think they would have had to say it had been demolished or something; and it would at the very least involve creating some false paperwork to get it successfully removed from all the maps.’
‘OK, good work. So, it looks like someone is going to some considerable lengths to obscure ownership and what is going on at Hurst Towers then.’
‘It certainly looks that way, and someone who is happy to bend the law.’
‘OK, and you think this is where Pete was going?’
‘Norton and I both theorised that assuming the guys we met are right, and Pete works up here, then perhaps whoever he really works for wants to disguise the fact by making it appear he works at Hurst Towers instead. We can keep digging for now and hope to find some further proof.’
Matt continued writing on the board.
‘That’s great; yes, if you have any ideas, test them out. That would all fit with what we discovered, which is that a gardener from Nalebury Manor also said that he had seen Pete there. The place is supposedly owned by a guy called Evelyn de Varley. Let’s see what we can find out about him. It would be good at this point to see if we can identify anyone who might have wanted Pete dead.
Bruno lent forward and placed his tablet on the table.
‘Slightly different tangent boss, and just a thought, but if we are struggling for who, either with Pete’s death or the other stuff, perhaps we should try looking for the where, that might then give us the who… It’s just a thought.’
‘Oh… go on with that thought Bruno, I like your thinking.’
‘Well, it’s just if we can’t find a person to focus on; then assuming Pete was killed elsewhere if the quarry was staged, then perhaps we should try and work out where that other place might be. If we found that other place, it might give us some suspects to look at. It might shine a light on people we don’t even know about yet.’
At that moment, Matt’s phone rang. He put down the pen and walked out onto the balcony to take the call. The others all talked about Bruno’s idea. About twenty minutes later Matt walked back in.
‘That was Dr Brett. He has triple checked; all three samples do match. That’s the sample from Pete’s head wound, the original sample from the steps and the photographic one we sent, so that’s a dead end for now.’
Norton looked up.
‘So it’s not looking like foul play then.’
‘Officially no, but he did have something interesting to say. I told him what Bruno had said about a different location. He remembered they did find a different type of concrete in Pete’s boots. The granules of sand that make up the concrete in his boot treads are of a different size, roughness and they contained quartz.
‘As the other two samples for the head wound and the steps were matched, placing the scene of death in the quarry, this different concrete embedded deeper into his boot treads was not an avenue that was explored further. But with this new information I think we should follow Bruno’s plan of where rather than who, focusing on this different concrete in Pete’s boots. Dr Brett says they will send over what they have by the morning.’
With that they all went down for an early meal, they then had coffee in the Operations Room before turning in for the night.
Matt ran over his outline thoughts for the morning.
‘Shall we all meet here say nine am and do some office-based research. Mostly on looking into Evelyn de Varley and about Bruno’s where Pete might actually have died. Of course he may still have died accidently; it’s possible someone moved the body for a reason unrelated to Pete’s death, unlikely; but it is possible.’
They all passed a reasonable night’s sleep and before long, they were back in the Operations Room. The whole of the morning was taken up with a slew of phone calls, and internet surfing, emailing and compiling and printing reports. Mostly based around what they could find about Mr de Varley and going over what Dr Brett had sent over about the different type of concrete. In what felt like very little time at all, it was four p.m. and they were gathered around the whiteboard.
Matt began.
‘
So, Mr de Varley is the owner of Chantmarle Capital, a hedge fund operating out of London, but with affiliated companies in… The Cayman Islands, the address is on the same street as the Towers and Hurst business. It took ages just to find that out, but for now we will note that as a relevant coincidence. Ava, what about Dr Brett’s information?’
Matt sat down as Ava got up to present what they had discovered.
‘So we went through Dr Brett’s information that he sent us this morning. His team provided a detailed breakdown of the differences between the matching original concrete samples, from Pete’s head and the steps and his boots, as well as the different concrete type buried deeper in the treads.’
Ava handed out copies of the one page summary.
‘It references various elements such as fine silica and quartz dust, but the upshot is, there is no doubt from the lab that these are two quite different types of concrete. The two original samples from the steps and Pete’s wound is a standard concrete, nothing special. That is what you would expect given the fact we were told they were put there simply to avoid getting muddy.
Ava paused for a moment to double check she was quoting things properly.
‘The interesting bit comes with a more detailed analysis of Pete’s deeper boot sample. It has shown to be a specialist type, referred to as an Ultra high-performance concrete. It’s used in areas of extremely specific engineering, such as bridges and dams. There was reference to metal fibres being present; which apparently goes further to point towards a substantial structure construction project with some extremely specific engineering requirements; this stuff is not used in the building of normal houses.
Ava now paused for a moment or two in order to let the info sink in and register before continuing.
