Buried Lies (Reissue)

by Chris Collett

  ‘So I thought.’

  ‘And what time was this?

  ‘I can’t say for sure, but it was still completely dark, so could have been anytime between about one and five a.m.’

  ‘That’s a pretty big window,’ Bullman observed. ‘You can’t be more specific?’

  ‘There was a car.’

  ‘A car?’

  ‘Outside one of the tied cottages, picking someone up. That’s what woke me; either the door slamming, or the voices, or it might have sounded its horn. I looked out and saw someone from the cottage get in, and then it drove off.’

  ‘Can you describe this car?’

  ‘It was a saloon, quite big, maybe the size of a Passat or something and light coloured: silver or grey. It’s not much but it would prove what time I was in the attic. I could only have seen it from the window up there. The view from the dormitory is blocked by a tree.’

  ‘And then you went down to the dormitory,’ said Bullman. ‘Did you notice anything out of the ordinary at that point?’

  ‘Only that Bryce was no longer snoring. I fell asleep again. I was woken some time later — just as it was getting light — by his blood dripping on me, although I didn’t realize straight away what it was.’

  Bullman turned to Griffith, who placed one of the brown evidence bags on the table, the cellophane window displaying a brown and white garment: Mariner’s blood-stained T-shirt. ‘Do you recognize this?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, it’s my T-shirt,’ Mariner said. ‘And it has Jeremy Bryce’s blood on it. As I said, it had dripped on me during the night and I was wearing it when I found him.’

  ‘What did you do, when you realized what had happened?’ asked Bullman.

  ‘I threw up,’ said Mariner. ‘Then I went to tell Elena — Mrs Hughes.’

  ‘You went to her house?’

  ‘I didn’t have to. She’d come over to the hostel to bring us tea. She called up the stairs. I didn’t want her to see what had happened, so I ran down to stop her.’

  ‘And if Elena hadn’t come across, what would you have done then?’ asked Bullman.

  ‘I would have gone to the house.’

  ‘Are you sure about that, sir?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am. What else would I have done?’ Realization dawned. ‘You think I was going to run away, in my boxer shorts and boots?’

  ‘The crime scene officers reported that most of your things were packed away,’ said Bullman, consulting his notes. ‘Are you usually so tidy?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I am,’ Mariner said, calmly. ‘You can ask my sergeant. What could possibly have been my motive for killing Jeremy Bryce?’

  ‘Until we’ve established exactly who he is and where he’s come from, that’s impossible to say.’

  Mariner was surprised. ‘There were no personal details in his wallet?’

  ‘There was no wallet,’ Griffith interjected with a frown.

  ‘Then it’s been taken,’ Mariner said. ‘He definitely had a wallet. I saw it on Sunday night when he unpacked some of his stuff. It’s black leather, and it has some photographs in it.’

  Griffith made a note on his pad. Bullman turned to Mariner. ‘If you didn’t kill Jeremy Bryce, then how can you explain it?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Mariner admitted. ‘Someone must have got into the hostel during the night.’ He was stating the obvious but it was important to have it all recorded.

  ‘There’s no indication of a forced entry,’ Bullman pointed out.

  ‘There wouldn’t need to be,’ said Mariner. ‘The hostel door sticks so I was advised not to lock it. Anyone could have got in, killed Jeremy Bryce and then left again.’

  ‘Without disturbing you?’

  ‘As I told you, I slept half the night upstairs in the attic room. And cutting a man’s throat doesn’t have to be noisy.’

  ‘I think we’ll let the pathologist decide that,’ said Bullman. ‘When you went up to the attic room, would there have been any indication to anyone outside that you were there?’

  ‘I didn’t switch on a light, if that’s what you mean. I’m not even sure that there is one. I did check my phone for messages when I first went up there, though. There may have been a residual glow from my phone when I did that, but I don’t know if that would be visible from outside the hostel.’

  ‘We might have to try it out.’ Bullman glanced at Griffith. ‘And you were up in the attic until the early hours, when this car picked someone up from along the street.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mariner. ‘It would make sense that Bryce was killed while I was out of the dorm.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘He was going like a chainsaw when I left the room but the snoring had stopped when I came back. I remember feeling relieved. I didn’t do it,’ said Mariner. ‘Though I understand that for the moment I have to be your prime suspect.’

  ‘That’s very good of you,’ Bullman replied evenly, but there was an edge of sarcasm to his voice. ‘And Jeremy Bryce just “turned up” in Caranwy on Sunday evening?’

  ‘Yes, I spotted him up ahead of me as I was walking back to the hostel. I called out to him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’d met before. While I was driving out here on Thursday I gave him a lift along the road to Tregaron.’

  Bullman raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘So you’d arranged to meet in Caranwy?’

  ‘No, it was a coincidence, though perhaps not so strange. We were both walking the Black Mountain Way. I stayed in Caranwy longer than anticipated, so I suppose it was inevitable that Bryce would catch me up.’

  ‘Do you know where he’d been, immediately prior to you meeting him again?’

  ‘It’s hard to say really. He wasn’t the most skilled at map reading, so where he’d been before that is anyone’s guess. That first time I picked him up was after he’d got lost, and it seemed to be par for the course. But he’d come over from the direction of Devil’s Mouth the day before yesterday. That would have been when he came across the byre. Did that turn up anything?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The derelict byre that Bryce mentioned.’ Mariner looked from one man to the other. ‘He told me there were indications that someone had been sleeping rough there. I phoned it in on Sunday night.’

  ‘This is news to me,’ Bullman said, turning to Griffith.

  Taking his cue, the DI stood up. ‘’Scuse me.’

  Bullman notified the tape of Griffith’s departure, and he was gone for about ten minutes during which time Mariner guessed that someone was getting a bollocking.

  Eventually Griffith returned, and he and Bullman spent a few moments conferring in low voices.

  ‘This puts a slightly different complexion on things,’ Bullman said, finally turning back to Mariner. ‘That byre is only in the next valley and within easy walking distance. Anyone hiding out there could possibly be our killer. We need to consider that whoever it is didn’t like being disturbed and thought that Bryce might have seen something he shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Bryce could easily have been followed and killed to prevent him from giving anything away,’ added Griffith.

  ‘But it was too late,’ Mariner pointed out. ‘Bryce had already talked.’ He took it as an encouraging sign that Bullman was prepared to explore ideas with him. The Superintendent would hardly be so open if he was still considering Mariner a suspect.

  ‘Could Bryce have seen something on the day Theo Ashton was murdered?’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ Mariner said. ‘According to him, he’d only walked into the area on Sunday.’

  Griffith paused a moment. ‘There is another explanation, of course.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘You were very much in the area on the day that Theo Ashton was killed. Perhaps whoever killed him thinks that you saw something. It would also have been known that you were staying at the hostel.’

  ‘So he killed Bryce thinking he was me?’ Mariner let that sink in.

  ‘W
ho else knows that you’ve been staying at the hostel?’ Bullman asked.

  ‘Quite a few people,’ said Mariner. ‘I’ve met Elena’s partner, Rex, and I told Nigel Weller at the farm when I met him. Some of the staff up at Gwennol Hall will know too, of course. I’ve spoken to Suzy Yin, the historian who’s working up there.’

  ‘Would any of these people be aware of Bryce?’

  ‘Probably not, given that he only showed up a couple of nights ago. Elena and Cerys know about him, of course, and we might have been seen together walking through the village or in the pub last night, but more people will have seen me around.’ For the killer to have mistaken Bryce for him made a certain kind of sense.

  ‘Have you noticed anyone taking a particular interest in your presence here?’ asked Griffith.

  ‘Not especially, but the police and the media in attendance means there’s a lot more activity in the village right now. There were certainly people about, and as we all know the press are curious about everything and anything.’

  ‘Tell me a bit more about Jeremy Bryce,’ Bullman said.

  ‘I don’t know very much,’ Mariner said, truthfully. ‘He was one of those people who listened more than he talked. He was a tourist, in Wales on a walking holiday, like me.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘He was a university lecturer of some kind. He didn’t say at which institution; only that it was formerly a polytechnic. He seemed interested in historical sites.’

  ‘Oh well, that narrows it down then,’ said Bullman with irony. He sat back in his chair. ‘Okay, let’s take a break. You realize that we’ll need to keep you here for the moment.’

  Mariner nodded. ‘Yes, I understand that.’

  Terminating the interview, Bullman switched off the machine and left the room. Griffith made to follow him but stopped in the doorway. ‘Humour me,’ he said to Mariner. ‘Why have you really been staying in the hostel? I mean, it’s not even a going concern anymore.’

  ‘Elena,’ said Mariner. ‘She and I go back a long way.’

  Griffith stared at him, wanting to know more about that, but knowing equally that it was of limited relevance right now. ‘So you’ve been to Caranwy before?’ he said.

  ‘Only for a short time; one summer in the eighties.’

  ‘Does that mean you also know other people in the village?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Most other people have moved on.’

  ‘It’s a mess, isn’t it?’ Griffith concluded. ‘We’ll try not to keep you waiting too long.’

  ‘How’s Elena doing?’ Mariner dared to ask.

  ‘She’s fine,’ came the expected reply.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Knox arrived at the police station in the middle of the afternoon. He was impatient to see Mariner, but protocol demanded that he report to the senior investigating officer. DCI Bullman was unavailable, so he met first of all with Ryan Griffith, for which Knox was glad. It wouldn’t hurt to get an idea of who and what they were dealing with. His first impression was of a consummate professional. ‘We’re holding DI Mariner because he was the last person to see Jeremy Bryce alive, and he was sharing a room with him the night Mr Bryce died,’ Griffith said.

  ‘And what is he saying?’

  ‘That he didn’t do it, of course. He claims that he was out of the room until the early hours of the morning. It’s not enough to get him off the hook, of course. We haven’t got a time of death yet, and when we do it’s unlikely to be that specific.’

  ‘But he didn’t do it,’ Knox said, with absolute conviction.

  ‘No, I don’t think he did,’ Griffith confessed. ‘But until we’ve got anything more substantial . . .’

  ‘Yeah, he gets that and so do I.’

  ‘We’re working on it,’ Griffith said.

  ‘Who was this Bryce?’ Knox asked.

  ‘A tourist. Your boss picked him up a few days ago, and then they met again on Sunday in Caranwy.’

  ‘That’s all you know?’

  ‘He’s apparently some kind of college professor, history possibly, but we’ve no address and no one has apparently reported him missing. His wallet seems to have disappeared. My chief is doing the press stuff now, including putting out a media appeal for anyone who might know him to come forward. We’re having to tidy up one of the post-mortem photographs to use, which isn’t ideal, but it’s all we’ve got.’

  ‘Are you linking it to this other murder?’ asked Knox.

  ‘It makes sense to,’ Griffith said. ‘This is a remote country village. Murder doesn’t happen here, so when you get two this close together, chances are they’re related. But although they’re both knife attacks the MOs are pretty different. Theo Ashton’s attack was frenzied, with multiple stab wounds. This one was clean and controlled.’

  ‘And a murder weapon?’

  ‘We haven’t found anything for either yet, though we’ve had to send DI Mariner’s pocket knife for analysis. He’s been carrying it around in his backpack the last few days.’ Griffith cast his eyes down to something suddenly important on his desk. ‘What would you say about his mental state?’

  ‘He’s been through some personal difficulties recently,’ Knox said, cautiously. ‘An ex-partner died suddenly. He was still close to her. But we’ve been more concerned about him being a danger to himself than to anyone else. I’d like to see him now.’

  * * *

  Knox was shown down to the holding cells, which replicated those in any police station across the country, distinguishable mainly by the smell of disinfectant that barely masked the odour of human sweat and excrement. It was, Knox thought, the genuine smell of fear. The boss looked in reasonable shape, all things considered. He was pale and bearded, and the shapeless track suit looked incongruous on him, but Knox was relieved to note that there was no outward indication that he was losing his mind.

  ‘Am I glad to see you,’ said Mariner. The men shook hands.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m okay. How’s it looking out there?’

  ‘They’re doing their job.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Mariner’s eyes locked on to his sergeant’s. ‘You know I didn’t do this.’

  ‘Yeah, and I’m pretty sure Griffith knows that too. I’ll be honest with you. When you first told me, I did wonder if . . . you know . . . the grief and everything. But I can see that I was wrong. Want to give me your side of it?’

  Mariner recounted his story, from the point at which he picked up Bryce for the second time. ‘I feel terrible. He was a nice guy and now I’m wondering if I could somehow have been responsible for his death. If it is a case of mistaken identity, if he hadn’t come with me and stayed at the hostel . . .’

  ‘Not your fault, boss.’

  ‘We don’t know that. Are they getting anywhere with finding out who Bryce was?’

  ‘Bullman’s about to put out a media appeal.’

  ‘So now we just wait,’ said Mariner. ‘Did you find out anything useful about our other local residents?’ Mariner asked. ‘How about Nigel Weller?’

  ‘There was more about him on Wikipedia than on the PNC,’ said Knox. ‘He was something of a celebrity, back in the day; one of the founding members of some rock band called Easy Money?’

  ‘The Easy Money?’

  ‘You’ve heard of them?’ Knox looked up in surprise.

  ‘If it’s who I’m thinking of, they had a couple of hits back in the seventies or eighties. They were pretty big in the Midlands. You remember “Lookin’ for Love”?’

  ‘That a question or a song title?’ quipped Knox. ‘Oh yeah, as it happens I do now, but I needed reminding. I don’t think they were quite so popular in Merseyside. Anyway, that sort of makes sense then, because his other claim to fame was his part-ownership of the Mellow nightclub in Solihull into the 1990s. He sold up his share of it just before he moved out here.’

  ‘So no criminal record for our friend Weller?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. He had a coup
le of possession of cannabis charges and one assault charge, but all years ago, probably about the time he was pretending to be a rock star. Since then it’s been all peace and love, man.’ Knox mockingly raised the two-finger palm salute.

  ‘Hm. Just because any criminal activity hasn’t been logged, doesn’t mean he hasn’t retained his interest.’

  ‘In what? The drugs?’

  ‘It’s what I think.’ Mariner told Knox about his experiences at the farm and the conclusions he’d reached.

  ‘But a few plants for personal use aren’t going to land him in too much trouble, are they?’

  ‘I’m still convinced that there’s more to it than that,’ said Mariner.

  ‘But based on what?’

  Knox was right. It was nothing more than a gut feeling, and it wasn’t enough. ‘What does Griffith think?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mariner. ‘He played along with me, but I think he was satisfied with the explanation Weller came up with.’

  ‘You think he knows more than he’s owning up to?’

  ‘It’s possible. This area was hard hit by foot and mouth. Elena said it herself; everything around here was getting pretty run down, but in the last few years the investments that Willow and now Shapasnikov are making in the local area are helping to turn things around. Griffith is from round here and would be aware of that transformation. I’m just saying that he’d have an interest in seeing that it continues.’

  ‘Do you want me to go and poke around a bit more?’ Knox asked.

  ‘No, leave it for now,’ Mariner said. ‘There’s enough activity going on now with the murder investigations. They’re going to be on their guard. What about Shapasnikov?’

  ‘Even less on him,’ said Knox. ‘Just a couple of paragraphs in the popular press, mainly relating to him buying the Hall, and one magazine mention as part of a feature about wealthy Eastern Europeans taking over the country. Unlike most of your Russian oligarchs, the man would appear to be, if not completely squeaky clean, at least largely legit. He was born in St Petersburg and made his fortune through timber. He has a worldwide export firm, though his business interests are many and varied. One of which is a chain of nightclubs across different cities in the UK, called RedZone.’