Unlikely Graves (Detective Inspector Paul Amos Mystery series)

by Rodney Hobson

  ‘When we went back in the evening to work through the houses that were empty in the daytime I could hear a vacuum cleaner running as I got to the door and it stopped as soon as I knocked.’

  ‘OK,’ said Amos. ‘We ought to have enough to go on with the statements we’ve got. If we need to talk to the errant Gunstone we’ll catch up with her later. Let’s look through the statements that we have got to get a general picture.’

  No-one had seen anything suspicious or out of the ordinary in the days leading up to Randall’s death, nor had anyone spotted a visitor on the day he died. A man in his late 30s, or early 40s, but possibly just still in his 20s or just into his 50s, depending on whose statement you consulted, was an occasional but irregular visitor.

  The women tended to put his age lower and his height higher than the men but it seemed to be the same person despite widely differing descriptions, and everyone agreed that they had seen him more than once.

  ‘Never rely on witnesses to settle a court case,’ Amos remarked sardonically.

  One neighbour remembered the mystery man visiting a week earlier, or it might have been 10 days or a fortnight, or a bit less than a week, she couldn’t be sure. It was sometime in the afternoon, or maybe early evening, almost certainly on a weekday.

  Hardly anyone had had much of a conversation with Randall, who seemed to have been a fairly unsociable sort of person, civil but not chatty. He had driven a car until three or six months ago or a year or two depending on who you asked but had given up after a minor accident. No-one was injured but he had been badly shaken, one local resident said.

  He had mentioned having a son to another neighbour but was vague about where he was or what he did. That could account for the irregular visitor, Swift suggested.

  ‘Yet Randall had no telephone numbers written down and no photographs of any children on show, not even of one with the mother of his child,’ Amos protested. ‘Surely in this day and age he would have his own son’s phone number. After all, he did have a telephone.’

  The group sat in silence, digesting this curious state of affairs. After a few moments Amos said to DC Michael Yates: ‘Sorry, you get the short straw. Get onto the county education department to see if any boy called Randall came through the system. He may not have been in Lincolnshire but if he was we need to know date of birth, full name, address, primary and secondary schools he attended. See if he passed any GCEs or A levels and if he did, which university he went to. Let’s see if we can track him down before he turns up again to find his father has been murdered. It’ll be a bit of a shock – unless he did it himself, of course, which is quite possible, in which case we need to find him even more urgently.’

  Yates took the hint and strode off to his desk, picking up the phone as he walked round it to his seat.

  ‘And let’s go back to the neighbours who claim to have seen him to find out if they can remember anything, anything at all, that might cast light on him or his whereabouts,’ Amos went on. ‘Juliet, I’ll leave you in charge of that.’

  ‘There’s one other thing,’ Swift replied. ‘Randall did have an altercation with one of the neighbours, though it was quite a while ago now. At one point there was a bit of trouble in the area with teenagers hanging around the end of the road. Mainly boys but one or two girls sometimes.’

  ‘They got quite unpleasant with anyone walking past, especially after they had had a few lagers. It was worse if there were a couple of girls there because the boys were keener to show off. Apparently while all his neighbours were up in arms about it – complaining to the police, council and the local newspapers, Randall would stop to speak to them whenever he went past them and didn’t get any abuse. The neighbours muttered about it but didn’t say anything to Randall apart from dropping hints. One person did tackle him, though. George Scott at number 63 used to go round in a morning picking up the litter and accused Randall of encouraging yobbish behaviour. Randall said the kids were all right and weren’t doing any real harm so Scott saw no point in pursuing the matter with him. He just kept on clearing up the cans. After a while the situation resolved itself. Either the teenagers tired of the sport or they grew up or moved on to pastures new.’

  ‘Randall seems to have an affinity with young people,’ Amos remarked drily. And with that the team broke up to press on with their tasks.

  Chapter 17

  Amos returned to his allotted task – the one he hated. While there was a lull in proceedings he set about clearing the pile of paperwork that had built up while he had been distracted by the murder inquiry.

  The chore had one silver lining, and a bright one at that: Jennifer.

  Amos had scorned the idea of an admin girl being added onto his team. If there is money to spare, let’s spend it on another police officer, he had told the Chief Constable.

  However, Amos had been forced to back down. He could not deny that the amount of paperwork was growing and that filling an increasing number of forms for every cough and splutter was not his forte. He regularly fell behind with the paperwork, and such as he did complete often bounced back as incomplete or unacceptable. Sarcasm sits uneasily on an official form.

  Indeed, matters would undoubtedly have come to a head sooner but for DC Yates, who seemed to have an affinity for painstaking nitpicking. Even Yates, though, could not entirely protect Amos from the Chief Constable’s growing frustration.

  Hence the arrival of Jennifer who was picked by Sir Robert Fletcher without Amos having any say in the matter. The first Amos knew about it was when the Chief Constable introduced her after her interview.

  His first mental reaction, as he told Yates later, when no females were present, was: ‘She’s half my age and twice as beautiful.’

  Fletcher already knew her and there was clearly some sort of link, though not a sexual one. Jennifer had money inherited from her grandparents and was happy to be in paid work while she was looking for some sort of enterprise to back. Perhaps Fletcher had an idea of pursuing a venture when he retired and was taking Jennifer and her money under his wing.

  Amos resented Jennifer, not so much because she had been appointed without his involvement, but more because he hated to admit that Fletcher was right. Jennifer was good at her job and she and Amos had a real spark.

  Amos often arrived in the office earlier than necessary to share a packet of muesli with his administrative assistant, dished out into two brightly coloured cereal bowls that she had brought back from a foreign holiday. Jennifer always started early and often finished late. She did not seem to have a social life.

  She was also fiercely loyal to Amos from the start. The inspector felt confident that she was not snitching on him to the Chief Constable, who seemed to stay well clear of her once she had settled in.

  Amos approved of backing new ideas with private enterprise. He was staunchly Conservative. He rejoiced at the election of Margaret Thatcher and supported most of her policies.

  The unions had to be sorted and the crushing of the miners, although causing unpleasant scenes in nearby counties of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, was a necessary evil that warranted the considerable strains it had placed on the police.

  He could not, however, forgive her for beginning the move towards increased bureaucracy that had inevitably resulted from the setting of meaningless targets.

  He often complained that the police, like education and the health service, spent so much money keeping spending under control that the extra costs exceeded the savings, and that meeting an ever growing list of targets meant that less rather than more work was done.

  Amos and Jennifer had just about cleared the paperwork by late afternoon when David, Sir Robert Fletcher’s press secretary and general dogsbody, came bustling round in the state of high excitement he always displayed when Amos was summoned into the Chief Constable’s presence.

  David regarded Amos as a loose canon who usually managed to upset Fletcher one way or another, either by being too obsequious or by bordering on insolence. Either
way, David was the one who had to suffer the chief’s ill humour for the rest of the day.

  Much as he hated a visit to the inner sanctum, as the visit never served any purpose and often ended badly, Amos was glad to leave the last of the box ticking to Jennifer’s tender ministrations.

  David hurriedly preceded Amos down the corridor and up the stairs to the Chief Constable’s office. Being younger and fitter, he took the stairs faster, though not so quickly as to open up a sizeable gap. He did not want to be alone with Fletcher awaiting the lagging Amos for more than a couple of seconds.

  This was a clear indication, if one were needed, that Fletcher was not in a good mood.

  ‘He’s here, sir,’ David called out as he entered the door. ‘Right behind me.’

  ‘Yes, all right, David,’ Fletcher answered tetchily. ‘Have you got the press release ready to go out on the tobacco clampdown? All approved by the regional chief constables?’

  Fletcher turned immediately to Amos without waiting for David’s reply. This was worse than expected. When in a bad mood, Fletcher would keep the summoned officer standing like a spare part while he dealt with his latest pet campaign. Dispensing with this preliminary demonstration of his superior status indicated a particularly bad mood.

  Whatever shortcoming he had been summoned for, it had to be serious if it took priority over the about-to-be-unleashed campaign to stop retailers selling cigarettes to underage smokers.

  ‘What the hell’s going on, Amos?’

  Amos was not sure what the rather vague question referred to so he assumed an air of innocence.

  ‘You mean the tobacco campaign, sir? I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Don’t play the bloody clever dick with me, Amos. Of course I don’t mean the tobacco campaign. That’s all under control because David and I are sorting it despite all the interruptions you are causing.’

  David relaxed and allowed himself a small smirk, quickly hiding his expression by turning and shuffling the press release.

  ‘Don’t fidget, David,’ Fletcher barked. ‘I mean whatshisname, the chap you got murdered. What is his bloody name? And that kid in the rubbish tip.’

  This was really bad, quite apart from the fact that the Chief Constable seemed to be blaming the inspector for Randall’s death. Fletcher, like Amos, was from the old school of life whose pupils did not clutter their sentences with meaningless expletives. It was, in Fletcher’s view, Amos’s one saving grace apart from the lesser consideration that the inspector was pretty good at solving difficult crimes.

  Fletcher did not like even the most hard bitten of his officers using so much as the mildest of swear words on duty. It gave the public a bad impression and was not conducive to clear thinking.

  Answer carefully, Amos told himself. Fletcher was rarely interested in knowing the names of crime victims.

  ‘Randall, sir. Harry Randall.’ Amos replied coldly. ‘He’s the one in the house. We’ve not yet identified the other body. It’s early days and there’s not much to go on.’

  ‘Yes, Randall. And the other,’ Fletcher said vehemently. ‘Are you trying to go round upsetting all the council departments in the county? First you get the refuse service on my back, now it’s the education department.’

  ‘Have you any idea how long it will take to trawl through all the school registers for the past 30 years? Just when I need them onside for my tobacco campaign.’

  ‘We need to get the message across,’ he went on, leaning over and banging the desk to emphasise his point, ‘that schoolchildren will not be served cigarettes or tobacco in any corner of Lincolnshire. Stop them going into the tobacconists in the first place and we stop the problem in its tracks.’

  Fletcher drew himself upright and sniffed. Amos, having already blundered at the start of this diatribe, judged it politic to remain silent.

  ‘Do you even know if whatshecalled … yes Randall, if his son went to school in this county?’

  ‘We’re not absolutely certain,’ Amos admitted cautiously, taking care to disguise the fact that he was not even certain that Randall actually had a son in the first place. ‘But it is highly likely.’

  ‘In any case,’ he added hastily before Fletcher could harangue him further, ‘it is vital that we find out what happened to him.’

  If he did have a son, that is, Amos omitted to say out loud.

  ‘It is a very distinct possibility that he is the murderer,’ Amos continued. ‘As you know, sir, the overwhelming majority of murder victims knew their killer and most murders are committed by family members.’

  Fletcher knew no such thing, having never been a detective nor ever having summoned up much interest in crime of any sort, but he could hardly admit his ignorance and retain his superiority.

  ‘So, we’ve got a corpse we can’t identify and another who may or may not have a son who may or may not have killed him and who could be living anywhere. That’s about it, isn’t it? Hmmm,’ said Fletcher.

  Amos looked at the ground. There was no disputing that little progress had been made in either case.

  ‘And there is no obvious link between the two?’ the Chief Constable went on.

  Again, Amos said nothing. He could not contradict what Fletcher was saying.

  ‘I think it would be a good idea, then,’ Fletcher concluded, ‘If I took the first corpse off your hands and gave it to Grimshaw. I don’t think you can cope with two investigations at the same time.’

  Fletcher looked squarely at Amos. He knew the inspector and his rival of the same rank, Derek Grimshaw, were barely on speaking terms and that either would hate to have a case removed from their grasp and given to the other.

  Amos made the unfortunate mistake of failing to conceal his relief. Fletcher had judged, incorrectly, that Amos would prefer to keep the body on the tip as being by far the more interesting and intellectually challenging of the two.

  However, in Amos’s view it was better to keep the fresh case with fresh leads and a reasonable prospect of success. Grimshaw would get nowhere picking up a cold case and there was always the possibility that Amos could prize it back later, especially if it subsequently transpired that the two deaths were linked after all.

  ‘No, no,’ Fletcher commented reflectively. ‘Perhaps it would be better if you took the old case as you’ve had time to get a grip on it. You’re just the chap to tackle an awkward assignment. I’ll give Grimshaw the Randall case.’

  It was at this point that Swift, who had been listening outside the door judging developments within, burst dramatically onto the scene.

  ‘There is a link,’ she declared breathlessly as if she had just run up the stairs. ‘It looks like the body on the rubbish tip was Randall’s son.’

  Chapter 18

  ‘You really can be remarkably devious,’ Amos told Swift on the way back to CID.

  ‘It did the trick though, didn’t it?’ the detective sergeant replied with a self-satisfied smirk.

  Chief Constable Sir Robert Fletcher had conceded that Amos should keep control of both cases, insisting unconvincingly that it was what he really wanted ‘just as long as there was a genuine link’.

  Only as they were coming down the stairs did Swift admit that the link was hardly less tenuous now than it had been all along. She had not heard the full conversation between Amos and Fletcher but had hovered outside the door listening unnoticed to the later stages to see how the wind was blowing before making her dramatic intervention.

  She had not, in fact, intended to make the link quite so palpable. She knew Amos’s golden rule that the less you told the Chief Constable the better. The aim was merely to convey that Randall did indeed have a son, a discovery that did at least suggest that the inquiry was making a modicum of progress. Swift had rightly judged, however, that something a little more spectacular was required.

  By now members of the team had returned from further door-to-door inquiries in North Hykeham. Amos called them together in his office where they could update him without any
possibility of others overhearing what was said. There was no point in risking a leak back to Fletcher.

  DC Yates, who had been in charge of gathering information from the county education department, had fared better than expected despite the department’s protestations to the Chief Constable.

  John Paul Randall had indeed attended school in Skegness, thrived and won a scholarship to Cambridge. Records showed that the boy was short and slight, just the candidate for the body on the rubbish tip. Furthermore, Yates had secured the names and addresses of other boys in his class at secondary school.

  ‘Ah well,’ Amos said. ‘This is becoming a familiar pattern in this case. We’ll divide the list up and take a batch each all in the same area. Can you arrange that, please, Juliet? We’ll go first thing tomorrow morning and we’ll assign one officer to each name rather than work in pairs so we can get through the list faster. In particular we obviously want to know where Randall junior is now, if he is still alive, and when anyone last saw him. Don’t be too direct, but watch out for any hints as to why there is no evidence of a family in Randall senior’s home. I shall take the school myself. We’ll meet up at the chip shop at the top end of Skegness High Street at noon – but don’t cut short any promising chat just to get there on time.’

  At least this destination was the right side of Lincoln, though it was further in distance at 40 miles. The A158 over the wolds was a pleasant drive in the summer morning sunshine, though Amos half regretted that the quaint market town of Horncastle, which he always enjoyed seeing, now had a bypass that still managed to get clogged up with holiday traffic heading to and from the coast. They took two cars so that a full team could get round as many addresses as possible. The school itself was a co-educational grammar school that had withstood, even to the day that Amos now entered its portals, the inexorable march towards comprehensives. The county of Margaret Thatcher remained a bulwark of traditional education, although the outposts were gradually disappearing. Amos thoroughly approved. He had come from a relatively poor family and benefited from the grammar school system in its heyday in the 1960s. It had helped him to aspire to a less humble lifestyle than his parents. The experience, although life enhancing in his view, had not been without its drawbacks. His best friend at primary school had failed the 11 plus exam that was the gateway to a better education. Amos had at the time naively swallowed the line that you didn’t pass or fail but were ‘selected’ for the most suitable style of education. His friend was not so deceived, and the relationship withered.