Silent as the Grave

by Paul Gitsham

  Warren knew him, a late middle-aged sergeant who headed up a community support team. He worked out of Middlesbury.

  “He reckons that looking at where he was posted and this policy about not commenting he was probably special forces.”

  “You mean like SAS?”

  Sutton nodded. “Yeah, and it gets worse. As soon as he left the army, our intelligence suggests that he moved down to Herts and started hanging around with his old friend Vinny Delmarno.”

  “He’s the hired muscle.”

  “Exactly. And it makes sense in a way. Delmarno was trying to go legitimate by this point, at least on the surface. He bought loads of small, cash businesses and was using them as a front to launder money. But he hadn’t left his old life behind—it made him far too much money to do that.”

  “So he employed Martin Bixby to do his dirty work, whilst he was the smiling pillar of the community. And I guess this Paul Rubens was the one cooking the books.”

  “It looks that way. And a pretty good job he did too.”

  “Well not that good. Delmarno got twenty-two years.”

  “Yeah, for murder not fraud. All the fraud charges were thrown out.”

  Warren shook his head. “How ironic. Sheehy claims that they only came up with this whole ruse to get enough evidence to take his business empire down, and it looks as though they didn’t even manage that. So what happened next?”

  “The fraud squad didn’t immediately give up after Delmarno’s conviction. He’d signed over all of his assets to his now-ex-wife when it became obvious that he was going down and so they carried on investigating. But in the end, Rubens had done such a good job at burying the money they eventually pulled the plug.”

  “So what’s the current situation?”

  “When Delmarno came back out the Offender Management Service did a little bit of background and it seems that his ex-wife Jocelyn—she kept her married name—is the sole director of a string of cash businesses. Some of them she got from Delmarno, others she bought or started herself in recent years. And according to a notice posted at Middlesbury Registry Office, the former Mrs Delmarno will become the current Mrs Delmarno in less than a fortnight.”

  “Presumably meaning that Vinny Delmarno gains control of his little empire again.” Warren shook his head in disgust. “It’s as if those two decades in prison never happened.”

  “Exactly. But before we finish, I have one little extra titbit.”

  “Don’t be a tease, Tony.”

  “Any guesses what the maiden name of the ex-soon-to-be-current Mrs Delmarno used to be?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Allingham.”

  Warren paused for a second, before it hit him. “The Allingham Golf Club and Hotel.”

  “Exactly. As first wedding anniversary presents go, it sure beats paper.”

  Chapter 40

  Exactly whom Jocelyn lunched with had never really interested Delmarno. He’d met “the girls” briefly a couple of times but hadn’t been impressed; all fifty, going on thirty (at least in their imaginations), they were frankly idle and lazy. All beneficiaries of large unearned incomes from husbands current, former or late, none of them actually seemed to do anything. He knew enough about them to “uh-huh” convincingly when Jocelyn filled him in on their pointless undertakings, but all he could remember was that one played golf three afternoons a week and another organised cake sales for a local church once a month. The rest of them seemed to lunch, have affairs and spend time pampering themselves.

  What Jocelyn saw in them he would never understand; for all her faults she’d never been idle. Whilst she may enjoy her lunch dates, she had still run a half-dozen firms, raised a young child to adulthood on her own and regularly travelled the lengthy distance to whatever institution the prison service had decided he should reside in each year.

  Regardless, the weekly lunch meet at the upmarket French Bistro in town was as regular and inviolable as the setting of the sun—so why wasn’t Jocelyn there?

  The rest of “the girls” were there. He could see them through the plate-glass window. He recognised the skinny, blonde one with the suspiciously perky breasts for a woman of her years. Next to her, stuffing her face with a cream cake was the chubby dark-haired one. Marcy? Apparently it wasn’t her fault that she was fat; it was genetic, Jocelyn claimed—although the evidence of his own eyes suggested otherwise. Three others whom he recognised but could recall nothing about made up the party. But no Jocelyn.

  He’d been sitting across the road for fifteen minutes, watching, and he hadn’t seen her. Far too long for a loo break surely? A sixth, empty place was laid at the table, but he could see now that it was waiting to be filled, its neatly concertinaed napkin still sitting upright, the cutlery undisturbed. Her erstwhile companions had clearly been there for some time when he arrived. Dirty plates had been removed and desserts delivered. Two bottles of wine on the table accounted for the raucous giggling that he could see, but not hear, through the window.

  His visit from Rubens had reminded Delmarno of the importance of his upcoming remarriage. He needed to marry Jocelyn again to regain a say in his companies. Jocelyn of course needed his money to rescue their ailing empire and keep a roof over her head. They both needed each other; however, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to make a few romantic gestures to keep her sweet and ward off any potential cold feet. And that was why he was sitting here across the road waiting to surprise her, a big bunch of flowers filling the car with their sickly perfume. Doing it in front of her friends would be an added bonus—he didn’t trust them not to try and discourage her from remarrying her bad-boy ex, the bunch of gold-diggers. Such a publicly romantic act might at least convince them his heart was in the right place and quell the sniping.

  So where the hell was she?

  He’d rung her mobile phone several times but it had gone through to voicemail. Did that mean she wasn’t picking up, had left it at home or it was switched off? He’d only bought his first mobile phone six months ago and to be honest, still didn’t really understand how it worked.

  He looked at his watch again. The flowers were making his nose twitch and he suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to sneeze. Sod it! She wasn’t coming. After starting the engine and forcing the car into gear he pulled away from the kerb, tyres squeaking. He reached the end of the street just as the lights turned red and his mood darkened even further.

  Glancing in his wing mirror, he noticed the white BMW parked on the side of the road. The blonde-haired passenger had her door half open but was still leaning across the driver’s seat, giving him a long, lingering farewell kiss. He looked harder. Could it…

  The impatient horn behind him told him that the light had turned to green. Assuming it was directed at her, the blonde straightened up, closing the door. The driver was obscured from view by the headrests, but the face of the woman was briefly visible in his mirror as she swung her bag over her shoulder and flicked her hair back, before darting across the road to the opposite pavement.

  The increasing sound of blaring horns faded into the background as Delmarno sat unmoving, unable to tear his eyes from the departing woman.

  Jocelyn.

  * * *

  It had taken half an hour of aimless, pointless driving before Delmarno was able to make sense of his emotions and decide what needed to be done. His shock had slowly morphed into grief, then into anger. Now it was a cold, hard fury that gripped the pit of his stomach.

  He pulled over to the side of the road and pulled out his phone.

  “It’s me,” was all he said when the person he was calling picked up on the second ring. These new mobile phones all had a screen that showed the caller’s name; Jocelyn’s even showed a picture of the person. However, Delmarno had started their phone conversations this way ever since they were still kids and they had to sneak into the hallway or wait until the house was empty if they wanted to make a call.

  Briefly he outlined what he had seen. Not much. A white BMW wit
h a partial number plate translated from the inverted image in his wing mirror.

  “Wait until after the wedding, then I want his balls.”

  “And Jocelyn?” The voice on the phone was cold, emotionless, professional—no evidence that the man had a wicked sense of humour or that he would walk through fire for those he loved. He’d been that way ever since they’d first become friends; when it came to work it was as if a switch was flicked and he became a machine. A ruthless, heartless, killing machine.

  The man’s loyalty was unquestioning—that was why Delmarno had trusted him with everything. When his conviction had become inevitable, he was the one Delmarno turned to. Hidden in the shadows, he’d watched over Jocelyn, kept their son free from danger and now he was in charge of Delmarno’s revenge—tracking down those who’d deprived him of his liberty. He was the person waiting in the blacked-out limousine that picked Delmarno up from outside the prison gates, hugging him tightly for the first time since he’d been convicted.

  Jocelyn had visited him regularly as he’d waited for her in prison. Their reunion that night had been sweet release after so long—but of all the people he’d missed the most it had been his long-time friend and confidant.

  Delmarno breathed deeply. The ache in his heart was almost as painful as the icy fury in his gut. Almost, but not quite.

  “Wait until we’re married again, then she needs to have an accident.”

  Chapter 41

  Tony Sutton’s revelations about Jocelyn Delmarno had turned a bleak day for Warren into one where the faintest of promise might be on the horizon. With Warren suspended, Sutton would need to be not only his eyes and ears but also his arms and legs.

  “Now we know that Vinny Delmarno is the de facto owner of that golf club. I’d give anything for a look at its member list.”

  Sutton ground his teeth. “Well we know that isn’t going to happen without a warrant. I can’t see any way to apply for one without raising red flags, especially now that the request will be coming from a lowly DI.”

  “And one that may well be under observation,” finished Warren. “You need to be careful, Tony. The last thing we need is for you to be relieved of duty also. You have to keep your head down.”

  Sutton grunted his acknowledgement. “At least we can hazard a guess at who orchestrated the spiking of Anton Liebig’s drinks.”

  “Pretty elaborate don’t you think though? Especially for a thug like Delmarno.”

  Sutton shrugged. “Who can tell? We know he left school at an early age, but who knows what he picked up elsewhere.”

  Warren tapped his teeth thoughtfully. Something was nagging him. Something that Susan had said the evening that the three of them had taste tested different combinations of vodka and Coke. He pulled the copies of Delmarno’s records across the table towards them, leafing rapidly through them until he found what he needed.

  He sat back in satisfaction. “One more question solved, Tony.” He pointed at Delmarno’s medical records.

  “He had a kidney transplant whilst in prison after receiving dialysis for end-stage renal failure. We knew that,” said Sutton.

  “Read on. Why would a young man in his thirties end up so ill?”

  Sutton scanned further, before quoting aloud, “Renal failure is believed to be a consequence of the patient’s poorly managed type II diabetes.”

  “Who else would be in a better position to turn Dr Liebig’s diabetes against him than somebody who has spent a lifetime dealing with the disease himself?”

  Chapter 42

  On the other side of town, the man in the white BMW hung up the phone. His icy demeanour crumpled. He felt sick. Delmarno knew about them. He hadn’t put all of the pieces together yet, but it was only a matter of time. Either way, the moment that Jocelyn signed that marriage contract she was a dead woman.

  His hands shook. Martin Bixby had loved Jocelyn Delmarno since the day his best friend, Vinny, had introduced him to his new girlfriend. Of course it was nothing more than a harmless crush; she was Vinny’s girl. End of. He’d been best man at their wedding, giving a heartfelt speech that teased his friend and expressed his happiness at her appearance in his life in equal measure. And if he’d drunk a bit much that night and been a touch emotional—well that’s what best men did, wasn’t it?

  It had been after his return from the Falklands and his ignominious dismissal from the army that his true feelings for Jocelyn had surfaced. By now, Vinny was living the high life as a prominent local businessman down in Hertfordshire; Jocelyn, his beautiful wife, was the mother to his gorgeous little boy. Bixby’s godson.

  With a dishonourable discharge to his name, finding gainful employment for one with his talents would never be easy and so he’d jumped at the chance to work for his old friend, using the skills he’d acquired in his defence of Britain’s overseas interests.

  At first it had been just like old times. Vinny was the brains; he was the muscle. He thought back to the first time they’d killed a man together.

  Vinny was a short-arse; his diminutive stature was something he’d always resented his parents for. Big apes like Angelo Constantino could impress with their brawn. Six feet five in his socks and a compulsive user of the steroids that his crew shipped around the booming gym scene of the early 1980s, he’d struggled to find the even larger bodyguards that his status demanded he have. It was his insistence on this single criterion above all else that had ultimately sealed his fate.

  Vinny, on the other hand, had never liked being dwarfed by those around him and so Bixby, who stood barely three inches taller than him, yet possessed certain skills that most men did not, fitted the bill perfectly.

  Any one of Constantino’s thugs could have lifted him off the floor and twisted his head off. In fact the first one to die had tried just that. Bixby had simply let the man lift him up before sliding the slim blade he wore strapped to his wrist between the man’s ribs.

  As the giant relaxed his grip, too dumb to realise that he was already technically dead, Bixby simply stepped backwards and then turned and kicked his defeated opponent’s equally large sidekick in the kneecap. When you weigh over twenty stones, it doesn’t matter if it’s muscle or fat—gravity is already placing tremendous stress on your joints. The kneecap gave way with a sound rather like a champagne cork popping, followed quickly by a howl of pain from its owner.

  As the brute crashed towards the floor, Bixby gracefully dodged the falling body before grabbing the man’s head with his left arm and snaking his right arm across his chest. The bodyguard’s huge downward momentum meant that Bixby need do little more than direct his head to turn the opposite way to the direction he was falling and let gravity do the rest. This time it was more of a crunch than a pop.

  Constantino had been so transfixed watching the deceptively slight Bixby despatch his two men that the first he knew of Delmarno’s presence was the warm breath on his cheek, followed by the stainless-steel glint of the carving knife as his throat was slit from side to side.

  Three days later, Constantino’s eight biggest customers all received a severed finger in the post. His two biggest suppliers also had the honour of a thumb each. The message was clear. Constantino is gone. You work for Delmarno now.

  Thirty years on and times had changed. Those days were behind him. Or at least that’s what Bixby had thought. Vinny should have died in prison, a victim of his lifelong refusal to follow the rules, whether they be legal or medical. As they’d waited for him to die, Bixby and Jocelyn had grown close. Together, they’d moved on. Delmarno’s poisonous empire of drugs, prostitution and murder had crumbled to nothingness and they’d seized the opportunity to start a new life.

  The string of legitimate businesses that Rubens had advocated Delmarno set up had thrived, surviving the turmoil of the nineties recessions relatively unscathed. The income had been enough for the three of them: Jocelyn, Bixby and the godson he was now raising as his own, to have comfortable lives. Of course they thought about Delmarno’s mone
y now and again, hidden away, gathering interest overseas, but they didn’t really need it.

  And Bixby found he enjoyed his new life as a legitimate, honest businessman. The challenge of running a string of businesses alongside Jocelyn stimulated him in a way he would never have thought possible back when he was a teenager, running around with Vinny and yearning to join the army.

  Of course now the dreams had stopped. Post-traumatic stress disorder was what they called it these days. Back when he had been a squaddie they hadn’t even acknowledged it existed. The nightmares had just been a part of the job that nobody spoke about. When they became too much you simply got drunk, started a bar brawl and purged the demons until the next time. However, under Jocelyn’s gentle ministrations and—eventually—the support of a counsellor specialising in veterans, the dreams had largely gone.

  Bixby stared out of the car windscreen. It had started to rain and with it he felt the despair that had been building since the moment Vinny had walked out of prison and back into his life. Jocelyn’s life.

  For the past twenty years he’d thought that he and Jocelyn would grow old together. Vinny was in prison, rotting away, no longer married to Jocelyn. She’d divorced him to save their assets—to stop the state from seizing their legitimate businesses. They could have walked away with everything, left Vinny to die in prison. But she hadn’t wanted to. Appearances were everything to Jocelyn and whilst she had been forgiven for divorcing him to save their livelihoods, those around them still thought of her as “Vinny’s wife”, as the mother to Vinny’s son.

  And she still loved him. Bixby wasn’t a fool. He knew that Jocelyn still loved Vinny and he accepted it. He still loved Vinny himself, despite everything. Neither of them wanted to cause him the pain or the shame that publicly revealing their relationship would bring. It was unnecessary. Vinny would die in prison and then, after a suitable period of mourning, the two would become public. They kept on believing it as he became sicker and sicker in prison. They carried on believing it when against the odds a matching kidney donor was found. They continued believing it until twenty years had passed and Vinny was starting to prepare for his release. And then it was too late. The world’s economies were crashing; banks were refusing to lend money and suddenly the business advice that they had followed during the boom years was coming back to bite them.