Buried - DC Jack Warr Series 01 (2020)

by LaPlante, Lynda

  ‘You eat like a teenager on a growth spurt,’ she said.

  ‘Well, at least I don’t stink of fags,’ Anik blurted out before he could edit his brain. ‘Sorry, sarge.’

  Laura sniffed her top and winced.

  At the bar, Ridley watched his pint of Coke being poured while listening to Jack’s answerphone greeting, then the beep.

  ‘Jack, ask Connie about John Maynard, please. According to him, they had a sexual relationship, maybe as an alternative to cash for work done. That’s it for now. Call me when you get a break.’

  The barman and owner, Warren, put Ridley’s pint of Coke down next to the two pints of lime and soda. Warren was an old Londoner who’d moved out to Aylesbury about forty years ago.

  ‘Dolly Rawlins? First murder we’d had round here in donkey’s years, so too right I milked it. The Grange was only, what, a 20-minute walk away. Tourists would come in here first to get the background story on the murderous gunfight between the notorious “London Madam” and the gangland “husband-killer”. Then they’d go for a wander round the location, then they’d come back here for steak and chips, and a souvenir from the murder scene itself. Forty quid all in, excluding drinks.’

  ‘A souvenir from the murd—?’

  ‘Don’t worry, that bit was horse shit. We stuck a piece of old rubble in a food bag. It was like owning a piece of the Great Wall. Or Ayers Rock. Or the Moon. An actual piece of the most depraved whorehouse and bloodiest murder scene this side of the Watford Gap.’

  ‘And where was the rubble actually from?’

  ‘My back garden. Law against that, is there?’

  ‘Not that I can think of, sir, no.’ Ridley manoeuvred the three pint glasses into a triangle, ready to be picked up. ‘You’ve got my card. If you remember anything relevant about the train robbery, I’d be grateful if you’d call me.’

  ‘Will do, guv. Will do.’

  Warren tapped the breast pocket of his shirt, where Ridley’s card was safely tucked away.

  *

  By five o’clock, Jack was back sitting on one of the benches outside Connie’s B & B, listening to Ridley’s voicemail. As he put his phone away, Connie’s Fiat Punto pulled up behind him.

  Connie opened the car door, gathered her shopping bags and then took a minute or two to actually get out. She had to swing her legs round first, then wriggle to the edge of the driver’s seat until her feet touched the ground; she had to grab the edges of the car door and heave herself out in a rocking one-two-three motion. Jack was so riveted by whether or not she’d make it to vertical that he forgot to offer to help.

  As Connie swayed towards her B & B, Jack joined her.

  ‘Miss Stephens? I’m DC Jack Warr of the Metropolitan Police. May I speak with you about your time at The Grange?’

  Connie said nothing. She just handed him her bags and unsteadily led the way indoors.

  The hallway to the kitchen ran the depth of the property, which was surprisingly big once inside. Jack couldn’t help but watch Connie’s ample backside sway from side to side as she walked. She still had an intriguing sort of catwalk wiggle and, although several sizes larger than Jack’s personal taste, he could see the appeal.

  In the kitchen, she poured two glasses of chilled water, handed one to Jack and then headed back outside to sit on the bench he had vacated a moment earlier.

  Once Connie was settled and had glugged most of her water, she said, ‘Why are you interested in that? I don’t think I’ll remember much, but go on.’

  Her voice was soft, husky and very sexy, with the slightest hint of a Liverpool accent. Jack recalled the twenty-year-old photo of Connie on the evidence board . . . That was the woman who suited the voice he was listening to now.

  ‘I’d like to know what you remember about the train robbery.’

  ‘Terrible, it was. I couldn’t believe it had actually happened. We didn’t know anything about it until the police hammered on the door in the early hours. I understand why they came to us first but, well, as soon as they walked in, they knew they’d made a mistake. Still searched the place though, inside and out. Dolly said, “You damage it, you pay for it!” ‒ ’cos we’d had trouble before with some coppers taking the door off its hinges. Do you know about that?’

  ‘I do, yes. The report says they were looking for guns.’

  ‘Another mistake. It seems that once you’ve got a police record, there’s no leaving it behind.’ Connie finished her water. ‘I love this view. Don’t you?’

  ‘It’s impressive,’ Jack agreed. Then he got back on track. ‘How did you end up at The Grange?’

  ‘Ester Freeman invited me. She said Dolly Rawlins was getting released and she had a project she needed help with. She wanted to open a kids’ home. We all knew each other from inside and, well, I suppose Ester thought we all needed an opportunity to be better. That’s what it was, really. An opportunity to start again, give something back, look after troubled kids before they turned into us, you know.’ When Connie smiled, her dimples appeared, and her eyes sparkled. She dipped her gaze and looked up at Jack through her long black eyelashes. He couldn’t help but warm to her. ‘We all got on really well . . . or at least, I thought we did.’

  ‘Why do you think Ester shot Dolly?’

  ‘Money? Maybe even something less important than that. Ester lashed out at all of us at one time or another. Mostly verbal, but she couldn’t half slap hard as well. She called me a whore once, so I said something back and she whacked me. Have you met Ester?’ Jack’s smile told Connie that he had. ‘She’s a strange one, isn’t she? I mean . . .’ Connie’s face became serious as she thought back to the day Dolly died. ‘Dolly had made mistakes, but she’d paid for them. She was trying to do a good thing with the kids’ home and Ester, because of money or whatever, took that away. Took it away from all of us.’ She reflected for a while and Jack didn’t attempt to fill the pause. ‘You know when . . . like, something’s the best and worst all at the same time? The Grange was that. For me, anyway, I can’t speak for the others. It was exciting to be literally building our future ‒ which is why it hurt so much when we lost it.’

  Jack nodded. ‘Talking of building, tell me about John Maynard.’

  Connie blushed slightly, but still chose to look him straight in the eyes as she responded.

  ‘My, my, you have been doing your homework. I was a 20-something woman stuck in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other women so, yes, me and John had a bit of a thing. Have you got my mugshot from back then, DC Warr?’ she teased. ‘I was a good catch, don’t you think? Even in a photo taken under your harsh police station strip lights.’ Connie sat up straight and leant towards Jack. ‘When a lady’s got no one to look good for, Jack, this happens. John was nice. Before him, I was with Lennie ‒ he’d beat me senseless, quite randomly. Training, he called it.’ She looked at him with her gentle smile and her dimples, and he could see tears pooling in the bottom lids of her striking, pale blue eyes. ‘What were those dogs called that were trained to think about food every time they heard a bell ring? Have I got that right?’

  ‘Pavlov’s dogs.’

  ‘That’s them. Within a couple of months of being with Lennie, he’d stopped hitting me ‒ but every time he walked into the room I’d shake, and sweat, and my heart would beat out of my chest. The memory of the beatings was enough by then, you see. That’s what kept me in my place. The fear.’ A tear rolled down Connie’s cheek. She put her hands flat on her knees and pushed down slightly, as if trying to contain her emotions. ‘That’s why I like being here. Nobody knows I’m weak and nobody wants to take advantage of me ‒ not now I’m past my prime and on the big side. I can just be on my own and be me and I like that.’

  As Jack watched Connie’s chubby fingers wipe away the tears from her chubby cheeks, he thought she looked like a little girl. She stared out across the Blackdown Hills and tucked a stray blonde curl behind her ear. Her wet eyelashes glistened in the early evening sun and Jack f
elt that he should hug her, or put a hand on her shoulder, or something.

  ‘I’ve not seen John since the day Dolly was shot. I don’t miss him. I don’t miss any of them.’

  Jack’s mobile rang; he excused himself and stepped away to answer it.

  With his back to her, Connie lifted her hands an inch or two off her knees. Her skirt was damp from where her palms had been, and her hands shook now that they were unsupported. Jack hung up and Connie quickly put her hands back down on her knees to stop the shaking.

  ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Stephens. My boss is wondering where I am, so I’ll have to go. And thank you for the water.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ Connie stood and picked up the two glasses. ‘Have you got a car somewhere or do you need a lift?’

  ‘Actually, I’m going to walk to the edge of the Blackdown Hills and get a cab from there.’

  ‘That’s a very nice way to end the day, Jack. Bye now.’

  With that, Connie waddled back indoors and Jack headed off down the hill towards the memory of teenage walking with his now-dying dad.

  Connie put the glasses on the draining board, leant on the edge of the sink and bowed her head to aid getting her breath back. She shakily poured herself a gin, added a pointless splash of tonic and a slice of lemon. Her mind raced. She took out her mobile and looked at the blank screen. She put it away while she silently drank the first of two gins and relived her interview with Jack. Connie took out her mobile again. And dialled.

  ‘That copper from the Met’s been round. I said exactly what we agreed, don’t worry . . . I can still act the dumb blonde when I need to. I just wanted you to know that he might be heading your way.’

  CHAPTER 12

  The call from Ridley had been another bollocking.

  ‘Why am I calling you?’ Ridley had asked rhetorically. ‘Tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock. You’re first up.’

  It was now ten o’clock and Jack was standing in the centre of his box room, looking at his ‘evidence wall’. It displayed dozens of photos of Trudie: some with him as a baby, some without; black and white photos of a very young-looking Jimmy Nunn, standing with Formula One heroes such as Jackie Stewart and James Hunt; his own birth certificate, change of name deeds and foster papers from the day he was signed away by his Aunt Fran.

  On a separate wall, were three photos – Tony Fisher, Harry Rawlins and Dolly Rawlins. These three seemed directly connected to Jimmy Nunn’s past. The photo of Harry Rawlins was the best of a very bad bunch ‒ he was at a racetrack, shades on, standing behind a woman who hid the bottom half of his face.

  Maggie walked in with two glasses of red wine and handed one of them to Jack. She looked around the walls and her eyes stopped on the mugshot of Tony Fisher.

  ‘He’s who you’re going to see in prison? He’s not an embezzler, you bloody liar! He’s a . . . What is he?’

  Jack faltered. ‘He’s in for manslaughter.’ Maggie glugged her wine. ‘He used to run a club in Soho with his brother, Arnie.’ As Jack explained in more detail, Maggie couldn’t believe that he actually sounded excited. ‘They took over Harry Rawlins’ patch when he died the first time ‒ the time he was supposedly blown up in the Strand underpass armed robbery, not the time his wife shot him. They got forced out eventually and when Arnie died, Tony had no one to hold on to his leash, so he very quickly ended up inside.’

  ‘No, he doesn’t look like the brains of the operation,’ Maggie remarked. ‘He looks like an awful man, Jack – those horrible beady eyes – and I don’t like the idea of you going to see him.’

  ‘He’s pertinent to the investigation.’

  ‘Which one? The one you’re actually getting paid to work on, or the search for your birth dad?’

  ‘Both.’

  He leant in and kissed her. This affectionate act meant two things: ‘Don’t worry’ and ‘Stop talking’. But Maggie wasn’t going to do either. She wasn’t sure she understood Jack any more.

  ‘So, the fact that your birth dad is connected to some of the worst gangsters London has ever seen doesn’t bother you? Because it bothers me. And I’m sure it’d bother Ridley if he knew what you were doing.’

  Jack didn’t look at Maggie because this wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. He just kept thinking, please don’t ask me why I’m tracking Jimmy Nunn, because he honestly didn’t know the answer, he just knew that he had to do it.

  Maggie talked for a while longer about how Jimmy Nunn didn’t seem to be a man worth knowing, about how Charlie should be their priority and about how she didn’t want Jack to be hurt if Jimmy turned out to be even worse than he already sounded.

  ‘These are dangerous people you’re mixing with now, Jack. I know that’s all part of your job, but when you’re on a case, the dangerous people stay in the office. These ones are in my home and I don’t like it. I don’t like Tony Fisher, although I do like her ‒ what’s her name? ‒ Dolly Rawlins. I think maybe I can empathise with her. Do you think perhaps she shot her husband because he was filling their spare room with his insane obsession?’

  Jack suddenly laughed out loud. God, he loved Maggie! He threw both arms round her neck, pulling her head to his chest. She turned her head to the side and they both looked at his evidence wall.

  ‘Just be careful,’ she whispered.

  *

  Jack stood at the front of the squad room and led the briefing. Ridley stood just outside his office, legs wide and arms folded – he was a mix of emotions. He was pissed off with Jack’s disregard for his authority, but he was impressed with the information Jack was sharing now. As Ridley listened along with the rest of the team, he was deciding whether or not to give credit where credit was due.

  Jack put a printed iPhone image of Connie up on the board.

  ‘Crikey!’ Anik blurted out, once again speaking before his brain had kicked into gear. ‘Look at the size of her!’

  Laura threw him a stern look. ‘Nice.’

  Jack began his handover. ‘Connie Stephens talked about the train robbery in exactly the same way as Ester Freeman did. She said the first they knew about it was the following morning when the police arrived. This tallies with the statements taken at the time. Nothing’s changed in 24 years.’

  ‘Suggesting she’s telling the truth.’ Anik was trying to redeem himself with Ridley. ‘I mean, lies are hard to remember so there’d be discrepancies in their stories if they were lying, either then or now.’

  Ridley chipped in. ‘Sure. But “I never saw anything” isn’t that hard to remember.’

  Anik looked disappointed in himself. He needed patting on the head every now and then, and Ridley wasn’t really a ‘patter’. Ridley just looked back at Jack, indicating that he should carry on.

  ‘Neither Ester nor Connie is living in a manner that suggests they’ve got thirty million lying around. Their bank accounts show nothing unusual, in fact Connie goes overdrawn at least once every month. Ester’s slightly better off, but that’s because the money she spends is Geoffrey’s. I think the original investigation was right to eliminate them as suspects.’

  Anik’s mobile rang and he stepped to the side of the room to take the call.

  Jack continued, ‘I’ll still track down and interview Julia Lawson and Angela Dunn, but I’d be surprised if they gave me anything different.’

  Anik bounced to the front of the room.

  ‘Sir!’ He beamed. ‘I expanded the Missing Persons search, like you said, and my mate at Paddington Green nick just called. A lady by the name of Susan Withey reported her estranged husband missing two days ago.’ Jack went to his desk to examine his notes as Anik continued, ‘Mike Withey is the same height and build as our murder victim from Rose Cottage. And he’s an ex-copper from this station.’

  Ridley unfolded his arms quickly. ‘Anik, Jack and Laura. My office.’

  Without another word, he turned on his heels. On his way across the room, Jack got out his mobile and started to search through all the notes connected t
o this investigation so far.

  ‘Anik,’ Ridley said calmly, once they were all assembled, ‘we need to be mindful of those around us when announcing information as potentially volatile as “the corpse in our mortuary might be that of an ex-copper from this station”. Do you know when Mike retired? Do you even know if he retired? Or was he sacked? Did he work with any one of those officers out there?’

  Anik understood his mistake. ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Tell me what you’ve got.’

  ‘That was pretty much it, sir. My mate’s sending me all the details now.’

  Anik got out his mobile, opened his emails and refreshed the app. At the same time, Jack was rifling through his own mobile, trying to find the notes he needed.

  ‘I’ve heard the name, sir,’ Jack mumbled. ‘Mike Withey’s already connected to this case somehow, I just can’t . . . Bear with me . . .’

  Anik was desperate for his email to come through before Jack could steal his moment of glory, willing the page to refresh.

  ‘Ah, right,’ Jack said finally. ‘Mike Withey is the son of Audrey Withey and the brother of Shirley Miller, the model shot dead during a diamond raid in ’84. That raid was planned and carried out by Harry Rawlins, husband of Dolly Rawlins, who bought The Grange back in ’95.’

  Ridley rocked back in his black leather ergonomic chair and rubbed his eyes. Jack and Anik, both with mobiles in hand, looked at each other. Then at Laura. They all waited for Ridley to finish thinking whatever he was thinking.

  ‘If our murder victim is Mike Withey,’ Ridley said after some consideration, ‘we need to tread very carefully indeed. Anik, seeing as this is your information, I want you to come with me to see Susan Withey. We need a DNA sample for comparison.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Mike’s DNA already be on file for elimination purposes?’ Anik asked.