by Deborah Lucy
‘What’s that then?’
‘Op Acre.’
Temple’s attention was assured. Wright dropped his voice and Temple leaned in.
‘A man came into Melksham station the other day. Said his mother had sent him down. He handed in a black bin bag full of stuff that he said had been in the loft. He said his father had died and his mother had sold the house and was moving into a care home. During the course of clearing the loft, they had come across a box. The man who’d died was none other than ex-Detective Superintendent Roy Filer, original SIO on Op Acre …’
‘Filer’s dead?’ Temple interrupted. ‘I only mentioned him yesterday.’
‘… So they look in the bin bag and there are a couple of exhibits from old jobs going way back. Amongst these is a bag with blue material in it. On the label it says, Exhibit 13 – Blue t-shirt worn by murder victim’s son. That’s you, mate.’
Temple’s heart quickened. ‘I thought it had been lost. Are you sure?’
‘So sure that they’re talking about preparing it for DNA testing. There must have been a rat in the loft but even so, there’s enough left to clearly see that it’s a boy’s t-shirt. Anyway, that’s on the QT, but I’m keeping tabs on what they do next. It’s Harker’s call apparently.’
Temple had long given up hope that exhibit had survived. So many exhibits in the case had been lost during the course of thirty years and multiple office moves. How on earth had it ended up in Filer’s loft? He must have taken it with him when he retired. Had he hidden it? No, he’d probably seen what happened to exhibits and preserved it. Waiting for advances in technology? Filer could never have envisaged DNA testing back in the early eighties. Neither had Filer mentioned keeping the exhibit when he had met him briefly. Temple was stunned. Could this at last mean that some further progress could be made? His mind went back to the caravan and a large hand grabbing hold of his t-shirt, pulling him forward before pushing him hard in the chest.
‘Have a chip, mate,’ said Paul, thrusting a plate full of chips towards Temple.
Temple took a couple. The sensation of warm food in his mouth made him suddenly realize that he hadn’t had anything hot to eat for a week or more. The comforting feeling the food gave him saw him push more into his mouth as he took a pint of Coke from Wright’s hand. He started to feel more human.
‘So, who have you been working with?’ asked Wright, as he watched his plate empty.
‘Simon Sloper,’ Temple replied, relaxing in his company.
‘That’s a fat, lazy, useless bastard if ever I saw one. So, you’re having to dodge the Glaswegian handshake on a more regular basis at the moment,’ said Wright, referring to Harker. ‘How’s the job going?’
Taking a couple of gulps of his Coke, Temple gave him an outline of the case and the progress so far. However, all the time in his mind was this new revelation about the t-shirt.
‘Got your work cut out, then, especially with Harker on your case. Let me know if I can help but it sounds as if you’ve got it pretty much covered. You’re using all the toys, the only thing you haven’t got is surveillance, but then you’ve got no target. Unlike, of course, the job at Swindon. They don’t know whether they’re on their arse or their elbow. They’re driving the Met boys up the wall. It’s a right cluster fuck, the surveillance team have lost the target so many times it’s a joke.’
Temple saw Harker out of the corner of his eye. He handed Paul Wright his glass.
‘I’ve got to go, mate, Harker’s over there and I need to avoid him right now.’
‘We’ll have a beer soon, yeah, when you’re done,’ said Wright. ‘I’ll keep in touch on Op Acre.’
‘Look forward to it.’
Still thinking about the discovery of the t-shirt, Temple called in at Marlborough Station for the keys to Wedwellow House. Another thing Paul Wright had said had got him thinking. He wanted to go back to the house again on his own. Once there, he drove across the driveway and stepped out of his car. He surveyed the outside of the house before putting the key in the heavy oak door.
Inside, he looked downstairs, slowly walking from room to room without knowing what it was he was looking for. Temple had felt something the last time he was there, something indiscernible. He went upstairs to Greta’s bedroom. His eyes scanned around. He looked at the charcoal drawing of Greta that hung on the wall and stood at the foot of the bed. He remembered how he’d first seen her, lying with her wrists tied. He stood still and continued to look around.
The silence and his concentration were disturbed by the noise of his phone ringing, making him jump.
‘Hello, boss, just thought I’d ring you with a bit of information.’ DC Craig Toff spoke in a quiet, conspiratorial tone.
‘Nice timing, Toff, the phone going off nearly gave me a heart attack. What have you got then?’
He’d almost forgotten about the recording device fitted inside Jonathan Silvester’s house.
‘Sorry, boss, but I thought it was worth passing on. The subjects were both talking about the son, James, and his funeral arrangements,’ said Toff.
‘Yes, and?’ Temple began to pace about the room.
‘Then things got a bit heated. Jonathan Silvester told Maxwell Ashton-Jones that he was the boy’s father. Said he’d known since he was born. He said that Olivia had told him James was his son and they’d hidden the fact from Maxwell. He went on about how he’d been more of a father to James than Maxwell and said – and I’ve written it down verbatim – “Someone had to help him that night, and as usual, you weren’t there. I was the one he turned to, the one he rang, crying down the phone, ‘Uncle Jonathan, you’ve got to help me, Greta’s dead.’”’
Temple hung on Toff’s every word.
‘Then he said – and I’ve written it down – “I rang you in Sydney because I wanted us to protect him. I told you, he didn’t just find her dead, he must have killed her, he killed Greta. He told me he was fucking her, Maxwell. I saw her lying there, dead. He said he hadn’t hurt her, hadn’t touched her but he must have. She was dead. I was trying to protect him. I had to. I knew he was my son. It’s a fucking mess, Maxwell.”’
Temple’s mind raced as he listened to Toff continue.
‘Maxwell said he didn’t believe him, didn’t believe that James was not his son. He asked Silvester why he was saying this, after all they’d been through in the last few days. Maxwell said, “We all lied, we lied to protect James and you’re lying now.” He said that they should have watched James more carefully, especially after Brett phoned and told them that Greta was pregnant. Then Jonathan Silvester said, “That’s why he was so ill. He’d killed a child as well.”’
‘What then?’
‘They argued about James. Jonathan said that Maxwell had known he was having an affair with Olivia so what did he expect. Said that Olivia hassled him to marry her but he didn’t want to. They started to shout about Riyadh.’
‘Yes, Riyadh. It’s where Olivia died.’
‘Maxwell said that you had asked him about Olivia, boss. He said that since James was dead and couldn’t speak, how did he know that he, Jonathan, hadn’t killed Greta. Maxwell said he’d said nothing to you about Jonathan and Olivia but felt like changing his mind now. Jonathan said that that would be really unwise and for him to remember the comfortable position Olivia’s death had left him in, thanks to him.’
‘Anything else on that, Toff?’ asked Temple.
‘No, boss. Maxwell then said he was going to see some bloke, Anthony Delee or something …’
‘Anthony de la Hay, could it have been?’
‘Yes, that was it, he said he was going to move out, ask de la Hay if he could move in with him. Hey, that’s the crime commissioner, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, they’re mates. Any more?’
‘No, no more, a door slammed and that was it.’
‘Listen to the tape again, Toff, and make sure you’ve got it all written down accurately. Then get a copy of your notes over to Kelly Farmer at M
arlborough.’
Temple felt deflated. The comments put James right at the scene at the time and Jonathan was convinced he’d killed her. Jonathan was obviously the first to give Maxwell the news about Greta’s death and they both lied to protect James. Maxwell had also lied to him about his knowledge of an affair between Olivia and Jonathan. He had obviously wanted to cover up the same pattern of behaviour of using Jonathan to distract both his wives. He knew he had been right to put in the technical equipment but he was still reluctant to think that Harker and Sloper were right about James. From the sound of the exchange, Jonathan had gone to James’s rescue that evening. But there was something more about Olivia and Riyadh; the exchange that Toff relayed had stopped just short of a confession by Jonathan. He’d have to go and get a statement from Jonathan but not yet; James was dead, unable to defend himself and Jonathan could make up what he liked. As Jonathan was unlikely to go anywhere before James’s funeral, for now, he’d just let the technical equipment do its job.
Temple looked at the photographs of Greta on the chest of drawers. Irritated at the thought of Sloper and Harker being right, he walked over to the glass doors leading to the balcony and looked out to the pool and fields beyond. He walked back to the foot of the bed.
His neck stiffened and he rolled his head from side to side in an attempt to free it. The case was getting the better of him. Perhaps it had been James after all, he thought. Perhaps that would account for the lack of violence, as from Felix Harmond-Fford’s account, he was in love with her. He was a big lad, perhaps it had been a mistake. But would a seventeen-year-old kid have his hands around the throat of the woman of his dreams, reasoned Temple. Would he want to tie her up?
His fingers manipulated the familiar feeling of tension in his neck as he tilted his head backwards, closing his eyes. Opening them, he looked up. The glass chandelier hung from the centre of the ceiling and was now above his head. Staring up, avoiding the glaring light, he looked at the hanging crystals. As his fingers continued to work on his neck, he noticed that those in the middle were missing. He looked back at the bed and back at the chandelier. Again, he recalled his conversation with Paul Wright about not needing any surveillance and the photographs of Greta and Hussain. It was a perfect vantage point.
CHAPTER 38
TEMPLE’S EYES DARTED around the room. He knew that Maxwell had effectively placed Greta under surveillance with the private investigator but the photographs Maxwell had were nothing like those taken of her with Hussain at Savernake. Taken with a long lens, the ones found at Hussain’s house were pornographic in detail. Temple looked at the chandelier again.
Temple slowly left the room and stood out on the landing and dialled his mobile. With it pressed to his ear, he stopped suddenly before he spoke and went outside and sat in his car.
‘Is that Technical Support? DI Temple here. What are your commitments like? I need you to come over to Wedwellow House, at Ramsbury.’
Temple instructed them to meet him at the house, outside the gates. They were with him within the hour.
Dan Crayling, the force expert in covert equipment, led the team of two men and a woman. Crayling sat in Temple’s car and left his colleagues in a white van.
‘Dan, inside the main bedroom, I think I’ve found where a covert camera may have been hidden, in a chandelier. Do you happen to have one that you could put in there so that I can just test the theory? I might be wrong and if I am, you’re going to think I’m an idiot, but I just need to see if it’s possible,’ Temple explained.
‘We’ll have a go for you, boss,’ said Crayling, brightly. ‘There’s all sorts of commercial covert cameras on the market now. They come in all disguises, some look like smoke alarms, some look like LED alarm clocks. They can be monitored remotely and can record the content – sound and vision.’
‘If I’m right, this would be pointing directly at the bed,’ said Temple.
Crayling and Temple continued to work out what they could do. Crayling went back to his colleagues who waited in the white van marked Swindon Satellite Dish Installation and Repairs in black letters. Back in the van, they all spoke at length before Crayling went back to Temple’s car.
‘We’ve come up with a plan,’ said Crayling. ‘We think we’ve got something that would do the job. We’ll set it up and mess about with it, record from it and let you know how we get on. It’ll take a couple of hours or so.’
Crayling went back to the van and he and his team got to work.
Temple drove off towards Jane’s house. With the prospect of having to wait for Crayling to contact him, Temple relished the thought of a hot shower. He had to wash the day off himself. He arrived to an empty house for which he was grateful and went off to the bathroom. Faced with state-of-the-art shower jets, still dressed, Temple negotiated the controls, which resulted in him drenching the arm of his suit, before a hot, powerful stream of water blasted out. Shutting the large cubicle door, Temple bent down to untie his shoes. Before he could get his second shoe off, his mobile rang.
‘Temple.’ His words met with silence. ‘Hello? Hello?’
‘It’s me,’ sobbed a voice.
‘Who is it? Leigh?’ Temple couldn’t hear above the noise of the shower, so he moved out onto the upstairs landing.
‘It’s Tara.’
‘Tara, are you all right?’ There was silence to his question. ‘Tara, are you all right, where are you?’ he asked.
Tara sobbed down the phone. She couldn’t speak through her crying and Temple knew he would have to wait until she could calm down before he could get any sense out of her.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ Temple coaxed. ‘Just tell me where you are and I’ll come and meet you.’
Between sobs Tara managed to speak.
‘I was so scared,’ she cried. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
‘Where are you? Tell me where you are,’ he said.
‘They took me to Finch’s garage. They put me in the inspection pit …’ She continued to sob.
‘Tara, just tell me where you are, for fuck’s sake.’
‘They had dogs. Pit Bulls and Alsatians …’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Tara, are you all right, what happened? Where are you?’ Temple knew he had to get to her. He left the house and got into his car.
‘They said they were going to put them in the pit with me and rip me to pieces …’ she continued to sob.
‘Who was it, Tara, who were they?’ Temple asked.
‘The Fortunes,’ she whispered.
‘What did they want?’
‘They said they thought Finch was your source of information, but I didn’t tell them anything,’ she sobbed.
‘Tell me where you are and I’ll come and see you,’ said Temple, relieved that what Tara had been threatened with obviously hadn’t taken place as he was talking to her.
‘They put me in the back of a van and drove me over to Devizes. They threw me out outside The Bell,’ she sobbed. ‘They dragged me out by my hair and left me on the pavement. I was so scared I threw up. I’m outside now.’
Temple wondered if they were telling him they knew where Leigh and Daisy were. Of all the places they could have dumped Tara, they left her there.
‘Listen to me, Tara. Listen to me,’ Temple shouted, his voice breaking through the noise of her continual sobs. ‘I want you to walk down the street and go to The Black Dog, can you hear what I’m saying?’
‘Go to The Black Dog?’
‘Yes, go there now, I’ll meet you there.’ Temple ended the call and called Leigh’s mobile. There was no answer. Temple rang the reception desk at The Bell Hotel.
‘Can you put me through to Mrs Temple, please, Mrs Leigh Temple.’
‘Mrs Temple went out, sir, about an hour ago, with her daughter,’ said the receptionist.
‘How do you know?’ asked Temple.
‘I saw them, sir,’ said the receptionist, ‘I was here when they checked in and I saw them leave.’
&
nbsp; It was dark as Temple drove into Devizes. Repeated calls to Leigh went unanswered. He drove through the Market Place and parked outside the town hall. He went to go through the door of The Black Dog but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tara in the small courtyard at the back. It was cold but she was sitting at a table, having a cigarette. With no one else there, he sat at the table, looking across at her. She looked a mess.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
He saw her hand shake as it struggled to hold a cigarette to her lips.
‘I can’t do this anymore,’ she said in a low trembling voice. ‘I’m a wreck, just fucking look at me.’
Temple saw her whole body trembled with fear. She was filthy and had grazes on her bony hands and arms. Parts of her clothes and hair were wet. As he sat down next to her, he could smell her, she stank.
‘What did they want from you?’ he asked.
‘Caleb Fortune wanted to know what I knew. I just said I knew nothing. Said nothing. They had dogs, baying dogs, ready to get me in the pit, they were going to set them on me. They were making the dogs go mad.’ She held her head in her hands.
‘They were just frightening you, Tara, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’
‘Well, it fucking worked,’ she said, her voice shaking.
‘So, where’s Finch?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘When he went to work at the garage this morning,’ she said, her fingers trembling as she tried to put a cigarette up to her lips.
‘Have you tried to ring him?’
‘No, I was expecting him to come home as usual and then, instead, I get a knock at the door and the Fortunes, bloody knuckle heads, are there, telling me they’re taking me down to the garage. They must have him.’
‘Did you tell them anything, anything at all?’ asked Temple. He was thinking about the gun.
‘You’re fucking joking, aren’t you?’ said Tara, scornfully, as her puckered lips sucked hard on the tip of her cigarette. ‘I knew if I told them anything at all, I was fucked.’ Her tear-stained face was now hard; her hands continued to shake as she lit another cigarette with the one she was already holding.
