Cradle to Coffin (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 10)

by Oliver Davies

  “But that would mean that he knew the bones weren’t that old,” I pointed out. “That someone told him they weren’t.”

  “Jack’s killer?” Mills suggested.

  “Which would mean we’re looking for two people? Whoever killed Jack told Wadham about the remains, but instead of calling the police, they decided to keep it under wraps and go for it, anyway? Then Schmidt figures it out, and they panic.”

  “Why go for it?” Mills wondered. “What would any of them get from it?”

  “Wadham gets a new exhibit; the killer gets their secret hidden.” I cracked my knuckles. “Not much considering another man had to die for it.”

  “There’s probably money in it,” Mills said darkly. “Money for the museum, a new grant or something to continue the research, and then a little bit of it happens to slip away and ends up in the pocket of Jack’s killer. Everyone paid off and happy.”

  “We keep saying Jack’s killer,” I said, “but I’m fairly sure we’ve got our suspect in mind.”

  “True,” Mills said. “But anyone could have been in that church that day.”

  “Anyone? Or the one person keeping a very close eye on Dr Schmidt every time he was at the dig. The person who ran out to us when he saw us poking about? The one who controls the number of pews and the placement of rugs and the sudden empty spot in the dusty cupboard?”

  Mills sighed heavily, shoulders sagging. “And now he’s done a runner?”

  “Perhaps. Or maybe he’s gone to look for help. Help from the same person he went to last time,” I said, striding over to Mills with every word, then hitting the photograph of Wadham. “Shall we pay the man a visit, Mills, and see if he can’t enlighten us to the whereabouts of our missing priest?”

  Mills nodded doggedly. “I saw we should, sir.”

  “Do we have his address on file?”

  “I think Fry pulled it for us when we went to meet him at the museum,” Mills said. What a saint.

  “Grab it,” I told him, “and let’s go.”

  Peter Wadham lived in a pretty three-story townhouse in a quiet little suburb of the city, the street wide and inviting, trees growing up through the pavement, which were nice to look at, but never great to park under. Bird poo rots the paint, my grandad always told me whenever I parked too close to a hedge or trees where birds might be roosting.

  I parked on the side of the road, and we climbed out, heading to the middle house, the front door painted a rich sage green. It was very well kept, all the stone clean, the paint fresh, even on the railing around the front garden. I supposed that a man who worked in conservation knew a thing or two about keeping up standards and proper maintenance.

  “Nice place,” Mills said as we walked up the door, ringing the bell. “Is there much money in museums?”

  “When you’re the boss, usually,” I said. There was no answer, and I was about to ring again when a woman’s voice called through,

  “Coming!”

  She was accompanied by a dog barking, and then I heard a door shut inside before the front door was whisked open. A flushed woman stood in front of us.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “He’s learning about strangers.”

  We looked to the right, to the living room window, where a mammoth of a dog stared out at us excitedly.

  “St Bernard?” Mills asked, looking at the fluffy face.

  “Can you believe he’s only a puppy?” the woman said with a faint groan. “How can I help you, gentlemen?”

  “We’re looking for Peter Wadham,” I told her.

  “He’s not in,” she said. “I’m Mrs Wadham, though. Can I pass on a message?”

  “We really were hoping to speak to your husband. Any chance of him being back soon?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Hell, if I know, honestly. Man’s home to eat, sleep, shit, then he’s gone again,” she muttered. “Sorry,” she shook her head. “Rude of me. My husband, yes. Why, can I ask? Are you co-workers? Because I told him not to keep sending people round.”

  “Not co-workers,” I assured her, pulling out my ID. “Detective Inspector Thatcher and Detective Sergeant Mills, North Yorkshire Police.”

  Mrs Wadham’s eyes widened, and she glanced up and down the street.

  “Would you like to come in?” she asked, taking a step back.

  “Thank you,” I answered, stepping inside. She closed the door behind Mills, then led us past the closed living room door, currently being scrabbled at from the inside, and down to the kitchen, the doors ajar to the garden.

  “Please,” she said, indicating the chairs by the window. We sat down, and she fetched another from the table for herself, sitting opposite.

  “You are police.”

  “We are,” I confirmed.

  “Looking for Peter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I ask why?” she inquired bluntly. She didn’t look shocked, or surprised, or even in any way bothered that we were looking for him, though given her mutterings before, I wondered if all was smooth sailing for the pair.

  “How familiar are you with your husband’s work?” I asked.

  “I would say very,” she answered. “I’m a curator at the York Art Gallery, so I know my onions, you might say.”

  I smiled at that. “Are you aware that he was overseeing a recent excavation?”

  She nodded. “Out in that little village. Something by a church, I think. He’s been very excited about it for ages, ever since the find came up. Said it’ll mean a big boost for the museum, plus that chance to undertake a proper excavation. Could be a battlefield. Are you here about that, then?”

  “In a way. Unfortunately, your husband was wrong about the remains being so old, Mrs Wadham—”

  “Charlotte.”

  “Charlotte. They are, in fact, rather recent. Hence, our now being involved.”

  “I see,” she said slowly. “And Peter is somehow involved?”

  “We would like to understand how much about the dig he really knows,” I told her. “A man of his experience, we would think, would be able to tell whether or not some remains were all they cracked up to be. We need to know whether or not he was aware that the bones are recent.”

  She kept her gaze steadily on mine as I spoke, nodding a little.

  “I think I understand you,” she said, her mouth curling down in the corners.

  “I am sorry to bring something like this to you.”

  She sliced a hand through the air. “He brought it to me; you’re just the messenger.” She sighed heavily. “He really is out, Inspector. Said that he had to run something by the team at work, then he’d stop at the club.”

  “The club?” Mills asked. “Golf?”

  Charlotte snorted. “I wish. No. Sloane Club. Sort of a ridiculous old-fashioned gentlemen’s club with leather chairs and cigars and no women.”

  “And he’s there?” I asked. “Rather than here with you?” I realised it was none of my business, but it did seem odd. And Charlotte Wadham did not seem bothered.

  “He is. It’s alright, though, I have my sister coming round soon, and until then, I’ve got the great furball to keep me company.”

  “He must keep you busy,” Mills said.

  “That he does,” she muttered. “Anyway, Inspector, I’m sure he’ll be there. Probably nursing a brandy.”

  “Thank you, Charlotte,” I replied, rising from the chair. “Good luck with all the puppy training,” I added.

  She smiled ruefully, standing up and walking us back towards the front door. Mills paused at a photograph in the hallway of a woman standing beside Mrs Wadham with a very familiar face.

  “Is this the sister in question?” he asked.

  Charlotte smiled warmly then and nodded. “One of us is an artist, the other a lawyer. We really cover all the bases.”

  “Well, that’s the point of siblings,” Mills answered. Charlotte smiled again, opening the front door to let us out.

  “I hope you find my husband,” she said, standin
g in the open doorway.

  I paused, pulled a card from my pocket, and handed it to her. “Should he return all of a sudden, or if you simply need it, please give us a call.”

  She took the card carefully, looked down at it and nodded. “Shall do.” She gave me a salute with the card before shutting the front door. The dog vanished from the window, and I heard a slight noise inside as she let him out of the living room.

  I headed down to the kerb where Mills was waiting.

  “Doesn’t sound like the happiest of marriages,” he muttered. “I mean, who goes to a gentlemen’s club on a Sunday afternoon when you could be home with your wife?”

  “Peter Wadham, apparently.” I cast him a sideways look as we walked back to the car. “Why do I get the feeling that out of all the things Peter Wadham might have done, his treatment of the wife is the one you find more offensive?”

  Mills just shook his head, sliding into the passenger seat. “Just seems cold, is all.”

  “I suppose it’s a good thing her sister’s a lawyer then,” I remarked, pulling up the maps on my phone. “Ever heard of the Sloane Club?” I asked.

  “No. Can’t say I’m too bothered by that, though. You?”

  “Been there once before to check out a witness. Proper old-school place, Mills. You don’t know about it unless you’re a member or a friend of one. Wouldn’t even know you were passing it on the street. Full to the brim of the finest pale, male and stale members of the city you stuff in.”

  Mills chuckled. “I can see why they’ve never invited you, sir.”

  I grunted, thankfully still having the address of the place at hand to figure out where it was. An awkward location that made parking tricky. I put the phone down, propped it in the cup holder, and looked ahead through the windscreen.

  “They don’t like outsiders coming in,” I told him. “No interview ever given, no journalists, nothing.”

  “Very hush-hush.”

  “Very. From what I understand from my witness, he was a barman there. There’s a rigorous screening process for each member who applies, and each one has to have been put forward by an existing member.”

  “Christ,” Mills muttered. “For what? So that they can sit in a dark room talking about house prices and boats?”

  “And politics and business and all those fun things,” I added. “Very importantly, Mills, they do not like us.”

  “Us?”

  “Police. You might be alright, look at you. All fresh-faced and able to recite Shakespeare. Me, however, less so.”

  “Because you’ve worn that coat every day since the day I met you, and regularly do you own manual labour?”

  “I was also raised by a single mother,” I added, pulling away from the kerb.

  “Didn’t go to university,” Mills added.

  “Have never voted for the Tories.”

  “Thank God for that,” Mills said with a smile.

  “Either way,” I said. “They won’t make it easy for us to get in and stay in, and they won’t be polite.”

  “What’s the plan then?”

  “I’m not going to be polite back.”

  Twenty-Four

  Thatcher

  The Sloane club was hidden in a row of buildings that overlooked the river, its clandestine members hidden behind a standard brick façade, most of which was covered by a large tree growing out the front. I knew there was a car park somewhere, likely behind the building or maybe even underneath, but if we weren’t welcome in the club, we certainly weren’t free to use their parking. I found a spot on a quiet road turning off from the one the club was on, and Mills and walked down towards the river, passing a quiet pub and a restaurant that hadn’t bothered to put out their outside seating today. Everything was fairly quiet altogether, as it usually was on Sunday’s, and we passed a few walkers, some joggers and the usual small groups of tourists who weren’t to be put off by today’s unpredictable weather.

  I stopped outside the building and looked up at it. Mills stood beside me.

  “This is?”

  “I’ve stopped here for fun.”

  Mills rolled his eyes and looked over the building himself. “Looks nice enough,” he said. “Shall we?”

  There were two doors into the Sloane Club. The first, the solid outer door that we pushed ourselves through, and the inner door, by which stood a sliver of a man wearing a black suit and bow tie and looked almost as if he could fade into the very architecture of the place. He certainly looked as though he’d been there long enough.

  He saw us coming naturally and cracked open the door to greet us.

  “Gentlemen,” he said politely. “Have you been invited by one of our members?”

  “I’m afraid not,” I answered, pulling out my ID. “Though we are looking for one.”

  He looked from my ID to my face with distaste. “Police?”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, sticking my ID back into my pocket. “Detective Inspector Thatcher and Detective Sergeant Mills.” I held out a hand as I introduced us.

  “Horace Chestnut,” he replied, shaking my hand as swiftly as he was able.

  “Pleasure, Mr Chestnut. We’re looking for a man, a member here.”

  “And you imagine he’s here?” Chestnut asked. “That is, of course, if you are correct about him being a member of this establishment.”

  I smiled smugly. “His wife confirmed that he is both a member and currently here. Unless your members are prone to lying to their wives.”

  “Certainly not!” Chestnut said, affronted. “Shall I find the gentleman for you?”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Mr Chestnut, we’d prefer to conduct our investigation ourselves. Unless,” I glanced at Mills. “We could always get a warrant, give the place a thorough turnover.”

  “On what grounds?” Chestnut demanded.

  “We’re in the middle of a homicide investigation, Mr Chestnut. We’ll find the grounds if we don’t find this man to whom we wish to speak.”

  Horace Chestnut stood stewing for a moment, the fine white hairs of his whiskers almost bristling.

  “I would ask you gentlemen to keep yourselves low and to not cause too much of a disturbance,” he eventually said, opening the door fully to let us in.

  “We shall endeavour to do our best, Mr Chestnut,” I assured him, striding past into the low-lit room.

  It was a reception and waiting area with a large desk and several chairs and tables, like a hotel lobby. The walls were panelled with dark wood throughout the building, and the floorboards consisted of the same wood with thick Turkish rugs spread across them. The lights gave the effect of candles, a dim orange glow helped along by the drawn curtains that shut out most of the sunlight. All that was missing was a thick fog of cigar smoke, and we’d have a veritable Victorian man cave. As it was, these men obeyed the law to some degree and had a smoking area outside instead, though no doubt it would be as ostentatiously decorated.

  “Do you have many members?” Mills asked casually.

  “We like to keep our numbers low, sir,” Chestnut answered.

  I nodded along. “Keep out all the riff-raff. Come along, Mills, the sooner we find him, the sooner we can get out of Mr Chestnut here’s hair.”

  Mills gave Chestnut one last smile before following me through the foyer into the back room, a large staircase sweeping up to the higher floors. It was lighter through here, the floors tiled, and all the doors, leading to the kitchen and the bathrooms and all the other useful places these men never used, were shut tight.

  There were paintings on the wall, vast, heavily framed, and as we walked up the stairs, the effect was not unlike being in the National Gallery, the paintings all hung like a collage of oil and acrylic. Hunts, mostly hounds and horses, with the odd bushy-bearded gentlemen. There was one of the club’s namesake, Sir Hans Sloane, looking out from his painting in a large, curly wig.

  “Know about him?” I asked Mills, tapping the frame as we walked past it.

  “Sir Hans S
loane,” he muttered. “Irish chap, donated a lot to the British Museum.”

  “Donated? I wonder where he got them from.”

  Mills made a face. “I wouldn’t go tugging at that thread in here, sir, unless you want Chestnut dragging you out by the ear.”

  “He would an all, I wouldn’t doubt it,” I answered as we reached the top of the stairs.

  We pushed through another set of doors that opened onto the main room of the club. And it was one room. All the walls had been neatly taken down in places to link the space up, all wrapping around an open section in the middle that looked down on the staircase itself. It was dark up here still, with armchairs and sofas of brown, black and dark red leather pushed against walls or set up around tables. Both Mills and I ogled a rather excellent room stocked with books as we walked through, and I noted a pool table, more than one chess table, and on many shelves, glass decanters filled with golden whiskey and deep port glinted in the dim light.

  There were a few men milling around, most of them paying us no mind at all, close in conversation or hiding between proper broadsheet newspapers. Mills and I walked slowly from room to room, checking all the faces that we passed.

  “Is there another floor?” Mills asked, squinting upwards.

  “Not sure,” I muttered. “And if he’s not here, we’re going to look a right pair of fools in front of Chestnut. Weirdly, that’s bugging me more than anything else.”

  “Sir,” Mills tugged on my arm, making me stop, and pointed subtly across the room to a table in a corner, where Peter Wadham now sat chatting to another man, whose back was to us.

  “Look, they’ve even got chairs for us.” I strode over. “Dr Wadham,” I called as we neared. He looked up with a jump and looked ready to rise, but I clapped a hand on his shoulder, keeping him in his chair as I took a seat, turning to the other man.

  “Mr Harte,” I said slowly. “Hello, vicar.”

  The priest fiddled nervously with his coat but managed to plaster that warm, knowing smile on his face as Mills sat beside him. “Inspector, sergeant. This is a nice surprise. Dr Wadham and I were just getting together to talk about dear Dr Schmidt.”