Silent as the Grave

by Paul Gitsham

  “That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it? If I were you, I’d try and track down this Dr Richter and see what he has to say for himself—although you may be lucky to find him still alive. It’s been a long time. And I’d love to see the original report, before it was monkeyed around with.”

  The questions were mounting and Warren felt a wave of despair wash over him along with that nagging feeling. What was he missing? Unbidden, the dream came back, his father’s pale face as he slumped forward in his seat.

  “Warren, are you OK?”

  Warren was aware of Jordan suddenly next to him, his cool hands taking his pulse.

  “You’ve gone as white as a ghost. Sorry, poor choice of words.” The doctor sounded flustered as he pushed a wastepaper basket in front of Warren. “Put your head between your legs and breathe deeply.”

  “He was pale,” mumbled Warren.

  “Say again?” asked Jordan as he poured water from a bottle on his desk into a coffee mug.

  “He was pale,” repeated Warren. “When I found him in the car, he was pale, not pink.”

  * * *

  “Who was it, Warren? Who was this Niall MacNamara?”

  Warren was feeling stronger, the mug of water replaced by a strong cup of black coffee. “Sorry I can’t offer you anything stronger, but the days when a physician kept a bottle of medicinal brandy in the bottom drawer of his desk are gone, I’m afraid.”

  Warren’s dizziness had passed, but he still felt wobbly. He took another calming swig, not yet able to speak.

  “He was clearly someone important to you. Your reaction alone was evidence of that. And what you said, ‘When I found him in the car he was pale not pink’. This case dates back to 1988. You aren’t even forty yet. That makes you mid teens at the time this happened.”

  Warren nodded. “My father.”

  Warren barely knew Ryan Jordan. They were professional colleagues whose paths crossed every few months. He was also a doctor, a pathologist used to dealing with the bereaved. Perhaps that’s why Warren found him so easy to speak to, found himself talking about his father in a way that he hadn’t even spoken to Susan about. That he’d never spoken to anybody about.

  “Warren.” Jordan’s voice was gentle. “I’m not a counsellor and I don’t pretend to be, but I have been dealing with the bereaved for most of my professional career. Yesterday, when I told you to go to bed—that still stands. You’re running on empty. I can see it just by looking at you.” He pointed towards Warren’s hands, which were still shaking. “How much coffee have you had to drink already this morning?” Warren didn’t answer.

  “You’re going to burn out from nervous exhaustion. In the past year, you’ve run several high-profile murder investigations, lost your grandmother and moved house and job. I’m amazed you’ve kept going so long. You have to take a break.”

  “How can I?” Warren looked at the man imploringly. “This isn’t just any investigation. It isn’t something that I can just pass on to somebody else to take over. I’m at the centre of it and I don’t know who I can trust.”

  “You can trust me, Warren.”

  Warren knew that he was right, and that either way, he had no choice. He had to trust somebody. Jordan was an outsider—he had nothing to do with the politics of Middlesbury. But who else could he trust?

  It was time to revisit his past.

  Chapter 28

  “Warren, great to see you. Come on in.”

  Warren hadn’t seen his old mentor, Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Windermere, since his retirement party the previous Christmas and the man hadn’t changed a bit. But then he’d barely changed in the thirteen years that Warren had known him.

  Windermere was one of those men who forever appeared to be between the ages of thirty-five and sixty. Of average height, with a full white beard and thick, grey hair, photographs of him playing rugby for the force in his late thirties could have been taken yesterday. Up close, one could see that the lines on his forehead were etched a little deeper and those who had known him five years ago knew that the reading glasses poking out of his top pocket were a relatively recent addition, but beyond that little seemed to have changed.

  “Well retirement certainly seems to be agreeing with you.” Warren took stock of Windermere as he was led into a large, stone-floored kitchen. The man’s shoulders remained broad, his stomach rounded but hardly fat and the forearms, exposed by his habitually rolled-up cuffs, were thick and muscled.

  His most striking feature as always was his voice. A deep basso profundo, its rich notes were made for public speaking. The gravitas that such a wonderful timbre lent his words gave him an authority that Warren envied. Whether reading some crook his rights or giving the eulogy at a colleague’s funeral, when he spoke everybody listened. The closest comparison Warren could think of was the similarly deep-voiced Neil Nunes, the Jamaican-born Radio 4 continuity announcer—although Windermere had a strong Brummie accent, rather than Caribbean.

  “Still a work in progress, I see,” Warren said diplomatically.

  Windermere’s laugh as always was even louder and deeper than his voice. “You should have seen it when I moved in. I practically had to camp in the lounge.”

  The cottage had been up a winding road that Warren’s satnav showed as an empty field. There was no excuse for the mapping software’s inaccuracies really. The house had been there for two hundred and thirty-six years, Windermere proudly informed him.

  “It’s stage one of my grand retirement plan to move down by the sea and live out my days fishing and improving my handicap. I bought it with my lump sum. The aim is to live in it for a year or so whilst I do it up and then sell it for a profit so I can buy something down in Cornwall.”

  “Oh, I see. And is Nerys into fishing as well?” Warren was doing a bit of fishing himself—he couldn’t see Windermere’s rather prissy wife putting up with living in a building site.

  Windermere smiled tightly. “Nerys doesn’t get a say these days.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Warren said awkwardly.

  “No you’re not.” Windermere’s grin returned. “She was a stuck-up bitch. Everybody said so.”

  He slopped boiling water into two mugs without asking.

  “Happened about six months after I retired,” he responded to Warren’s unspoken question. “She finished the same month as I did. I guess we were both at fault—we just didn’t plan our retirement.” He led Warren into the living room.

  “I mean we did our financial planning of course; both of us are on damn good pensions and we’d had a chat with the bank manager and all of that, but we never actually planned what we’d do with our time.”

  He smiled humourlessly. “The thing about a two-month cruise is that it only lasts two months and then you’ve got thirty bloody years together, God willing. Take my advice—” he’d slipped back into mentor mode now “—make sure you’ve got hobbies and plans lined up for when you retire or within six months you’ll be sick of the sight of each other.”

  Warren nodded, not entirely sure what to say. Fortunately, Windermere filled the void.

  “Anyhow, everything was all very civil—we’ve no kids, thank God—and Nerys’ pension is broadly similar to mine, so we just split everything fifty-fifty and went our separate ways.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that.” And he was. Bob Windermere had been a DCI when Warren joined CID. He hadn’t got on well with his first DCI, but when he’d retired, Warren had been transferred to Windermere’s team and never looked back, eventually counting the older man as a friend as well as his boss. He’d worked with the man day in, day out for five years before Windermere’s promotion to detective superintendent had pushed him up the ladder. Even then Warren, by now a detective sergeant, still sought the man’s advice and it was for this reason he’d travelled for over an hour to see him.

  Sitting across from him, Warren was reminded what an easy man he was to underestimate. In fact, legend had it that it
was just such a misjudgement that had landed him with the nickname “Santa” after a rival detective inspector, jockeying for position as the next DCI, had learnt that Windermere played Father Christmas at his church’s Christmas fete each year. True to form, Windermere had taken the derogatory nickname, turned it around and wore it with pride. As for his rival… Well it seems that his new role as the force’s home-security consultant didn’t really suit him and he eventually returned to uniform. The message was clear—don’t mess with Windermere.

  It was a message that many a criminal lowlife had ignored and lived to regret. The scars on Windermere’s outsized knuckles hinted at a man who wasn’t afraid to get stuck in, back in the days when nobody questioned how a suspect could fall down a flight of stairs in a single-storey police station.

  Now those knuckles were wrapped around a mug of steaming coffee; new cuts and scrapes had joined the old scars along with splashes of paint and plaster dust.

  “Well, you’re certainly keeping busy.”

  “Good, honest, hard work. My old man was a master builder: brickie, plasterer, joiner, plumber, even electrics. He didn’t touch gas, but he’d do everything else. I used to go out with him on weekends and holidays—he wanted me to have a trade to fall back on in case the police didn’t work out.” Windermere chuckled. “I think I was a super before he accepted that I probably wasn’t going to take over his business when he retired. I learnt some bloody useful skills though.” He nodded at a pile of precariously perched books on the coffee table. “Mind you a lot of it’s changed and I’m a bit rusty, but it’s good to work with my hands again.”

  He took a long swig of his coffee and his eyes narrowed. “But you didn’t come all this way to hear me banging on about my idyllic lifestyle. What do you want?”

  Warren took a deep breath. “Bob, do you remember my father?”

  Windermere looked at him for a long second. “Yes. He was in CID—we never worked together on a case, but of course I knew him.”

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  Windermere got up and walked towards the window. He took another long swig from his coffee.

  “There was a…debate when you applied to Coventry CID. We knew who you were of course. It was all on the application form. One or two of the more…conservative members of the unit were uncomfortable.” He snorted. “Funnily enough it wasn’t your father’s actions that bothered them. It was your name change. They felt that you were trying to hide your past. Bloody nonsense of course. It was in the second box on the application form under ‘previous names’. Anyhow, I figured it was exactly the opposite. That in fact you were trying to move on with your life, to prove that you were your own man.”

  He turned back. “In the end, you were highly qualified for the position and you really shone at interview. And as the old saying goes: ‘The sins of the father shall not be visited upon his sons’.”

  Warren was quiet for a few seconds. “What do you know about my father’s death?”

  Windermere pursed his lips and breathed out heavily. “Not a huge amount, to be honest. As soon as it became apparent that there was corruption involved, we were locked out of the investigation.” He glanced over, saw Warren waiting expectantly. “What is this about, Warren? It was nearly twenty-five years ago. Why are you bringing this up now?”

  “I need to know what happened.”

  Windermere shrugged. “OK. From what I heard, Niall had been involved in a drugs bust up in Wood End. Nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual smash and grab. We got a tip-off, watched the place for a bit and when we were sure of what we had, raised a warrant and went in. You know how it works. You shout, ‘Police—open up,’ as you smash the door off the hinges. Anyway, they found half-a-dozen dealers, a couple of junkies zoned out in the back room and a couple of prostitutes paying for their heroin in favours. When they searched the place they recovered a few grands’ worth of drugs and about fifty thousand in cash, mixed notes.”

  “Then what?”

  Windermere sighed. “The story goes that on the way back to the station, before the cash was counted, your old man filled a hold-all with about half the money. I guess he figured nobody would miss it. Sloppy procedures, but it happened all the time back then. Wood End was a pretty nasty part of town and sitting in the middle of a drug den counting cash was nobody’s idea of a fun time—better to take it all back to Little Park Street and sort everything out there.”

  “So how was he caught?”

  “One of the dealers reckoned he’d seen your old man doing it out the back window of the van. He told his lawyer, who put it forward as a bargaining chip.”

  “So this is all on tape then?”

  Windermere shook his head. “Of course not. You know better than that. Deals like that are made under the table.”

  “Well when did they arrest Dad?”

  Windermere placed his cup back on the table. “They didn’t. The day after the raid, he killed himself. The allegations didn’t surface until a few days later. They found the money under a towel in a gym bag in his locker.”

  “So why did he kill himself? He thought he’d gotten away with it. It doesn’t add up.”

  Windermere took his glasses out of his pocket, polished them on his shirt. “I don’t know, Warren. I really don’t. I like to think that he was a good man at heart, that he stole the money in a moment of weakness and that he changed his mind and regretted it.”

  “And killed himself,” Warren said bitterly.

  Windermere returned his glasses to his pocket. “What’s brought this on, Warren? Why are you here?”

  “Bob, I need your help.” The pain in Warren’s voice was clear.

  “Anything, Warren, you know that.”

  “Dad didn’t kill himself.”

  Windermere blinked. “Say again.”

  “Dad didn’t commit suicide. He was murdered.”

  “Go on.” Windermere’s tone was neutral, his poker face impenetrable, the brief flicker of surprise now buried.

  “I’ve seen the autopsy report. It doesn’t add up. There are too many discrepancies. I think it’s a fake.”

  “It was clearly good enough for the coroner at the time of the inquest. What makes you think you know better all these years later?”

  Windermere wasn’t being aggressive, Warren knew. It was what had made him such a good investigator. When you took something to Bob Windermere, you’d damn well better be able to justify it. On the other hand, convince him and he’d back you one hundred per cent.

  Warren took out a photocopy of the annotated autopsy and took Windermere through what he and Ryan Jordan had discovered. Windermere, as always, remained inscrutable throughout, saying nothing. The questions would come after.

  “Rather circumstantial, don’t you think?”

  Before Warren could respond, Windermere continued, “It’s twenty-odd years on and both the coroner and the pathologist are dead. All you have are rumours and hearsay to tell us that this Dr Richter was incompetent—unfortunate, but not unheard of—and that it looks like the report may have been altered.” He pointed at the documents on the table.

  “But that’s pretty flimsy. All you’ve got is a photocopy of some typewritten forms. There could be a hundred reasons why they had to make alterations to them. The date could be wrong on the lab’s computer or somebody could have entered it incorrectly. As for the sloppy typewriting, maybe he did do his own reports? Budgets were pretty tight back then; hell it could have been his secretary’s first day on the job.” Windermere paused. “What spurred this on? What made you look at this all again?”

  “Gavin Sheehy claimed to have been involved in a stitch-up with my father in the eighties. He thinks he was murdered as revenge.”

  Windermere snorted. “Jesus, Warren! Sheehy? That’s your source? He’s a bloody crook; you know that. I thought you had more sense. Why do you think they appointed you to take over, why I encouraged you to take the job?”

  The words stung more
than Warren would have expected.

  “And I bet he’s claiming he’s been set up to discredit him or some such nonsense.”

  Warren felt waves of frustration welling up in him. “They said that my father died of carbon monoxide poisoning. He should have been flushed bright pink. He was grey, his lips blue.” Warren’s voice trembled with the memory.

  Windermere placed a hand on Warren’s shoulder. “Warren, you know as well as I do how unreliable witnesses’ memories are. You were a kid. Are sure your memory isn’t playing tricks on you?”

  Warren shook his head vehemently. “I saw that face every night for ten years. The dream never changes; I even remember scalding my hand when I spilt a mug of coffee trying to open the garage door—a garage door closed from the outside.” He lay back, the soft leather sagging comfortingly.

  Windermere picked up the coffee mugs and disappeared into the kitchen. By the time the kettle had re-boiled and the cups were replenished, Warren was fully back in control. He nodded gratefully, noting the faint smell of brandy as he inhaled the steam.

  “Not enough to stop you driving home,” Windermere reassured him, taking a sip of his own. “OK, let’s assume Sheehy’s not just taking the piss; what did he tell you?”

  “He claims that he and my father were working together on an Operation Lietmotif, a cross-county initiative to bring down a major player in the Midlands’ drug scene.”

  “Vinny Delmarno.”

  “Exactly. Anyway after a couple of years they had uncovered enough details of Delmarno’s sordid little empire to put him away and bring it all down but the problem was that Delmarno was too clever. He pulled the strings but no longer got his hands dirty. They needed the final pieces of evidence that would link him to the network. My father and Gavin Sheehy were convinced that the evidence existed but they needed a search warrant for his Hertfordshire home to uncover it.”

  “Go on.” Windermere’s face was inscrutable.

  “Back before he got ‘respectable’, Delmarno was a lot more hands-on. In September 1984 a major dealer in Coventry, one of Delmarno’s rivals, was found shot dead. The list of suspects was as long as your arm and the case remained unsolved. Anyway, my father and Sheehy received a tip-off from a source that a couple of years after the event Delmarno had been boasting about killing Frankie Cruise and getting away with it. He produced a handgun that he claimed was the same one he’d used to shoot him.”