Unlikely Graves (Detective Inspector Paul Amos Mystery series)

by Rodney Hobson

  Amos looked at her incredulously.

  ‘I got a message from Sergeant Jenkins to say she’d turned up and was at the next door neighbours.’

  He indicated the house.

  ‘The only person who has been there,’ Swift assured him, ‘was a young man aged about 40 who pulled up in a car.’

  She consulted her sheets of paper on her clipboard.

  ‘Mr Stokes lives at that address. We interviewed him first of the neighbours but he said he saw nothing. He was out on the pavement watching us most of the time you’ve been gone. I’m surprised he’s not still there.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Amos interrupted irritably. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Stokes called to him and they went inside. They seemed to know each other. I was a bit tied up at that moment but as soon as I could – it was only a couple of minutes – I went across.

  ‘The man came out as Stokes opened the door. I asked his name and if he had seen anything but he said he didn’t live here and was only visiting Mr Stokes. He said he hadn’t been in the street for more than a month.’

  ‘Did he give his name?’ Amos asked urgently.

  ‘No,’ Swift admitted. ‘He walked straight to his car and I was going to demand his driving licence but I got distracted by a call from one of the constables who thought another neighbour had seen something so he got away.’

  ‘I think I know who he was,’ Amos said as he hammered on Stokes’s door.

  A few seconds later the door opened. Stokes opened his mouth to speak in protest but Amos pounced first.

  ‘Was that Harry Randall’s son?’ he demanded. ‘The one who just came to see you?’

  ‘Yes. And he didn’t come to see me, you know. He hardly knows me. He sort of came to see his dad.’

  ‘I rang to tell you like you said I should, you know, but you sort of weren’t there so I left a message with some Jenkins chap who said he’d pass it on, you know.’

  ‘Why on earth did you tell Sergeant Jenkins that Randall’s daughter had turned up?’

  ‘Daughter?’ Stokes replied in surprise. ‘I didn’t say anything about a daughter. I didn’t know Randall had one. I just said, you know, to tell you that the Randall kid had sort of turned up.’

  Stokes did not know about the daughter. And Jenkins, Amos realized, not being involved in the case did not realize that Randall had a son. All the talk at HQ had been about finding Randall’s daughter.

  ‘What happened?’ Amos demanded.

  ‘What, like, you know, when I rang? I thought you’d sort of know that.’

  ‘No, I mean where’s Randall’s son now? Did he say where he was going?’

  ‘I dunno, he sort of just went. It’s not my fault. Your officer, you know, sort of hammered on the door and he sort of just drove off while I was talking to her.’

  ‘What did he say to you while he was here? Did he say why he had come? Did he know about his father’s death?’

  ‘Well, you know,’ Stokes began.

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ Amos interrupted irritably. ‘That’s why I want you to tell me.’

  Stokes was a bit taken aback. If Amos was aiming to ginger him up, the attempt met with very limited success.

  ‘Well, he was just, you know, coming to see him. He sort of didn’t know his dad was dead. I called him in and sort of explained it all to him, you know.’

  ‘How did he take it?’ Amos asked anxiously.

  ‘Well, sort of quite calmly, you know. Very matter of fact. I am sort of, well, tactful and sympathetic, you know. I did break it to him, you know, as gently as I could. He wouldn’t sit down, though, you know.

  ‘But he did seem very sort of angry inside,’ Stokes said with a sudden burst. ‘Well you would, wouldn’t you, you know. Someone kills your dad, I mean, you know.’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’ Amos pressed urgently.

  ‘Well, no, you see your officer hammered on the door, like I said, you know, so that was sort of it. He sort of seemed in a hurry to get off.’

  Amos broke away instantly.

  ‘Juliet,’ he shouted, ‘you’re driving.’

  They dashed to the car, Amos handing her the keys like a relay baton in return for the clipboard, which he half handed to, half threw at, the nearest detective .

  ‘Where’re we going?’ Swift called out as she jerked the driver’s door open.

  Amos replied: ‘To save the life of a murderer.’

  Chapter 39

  This time Amos switched on the flashing blue lights and siren immediately, even before Swift had got the engine started. There was no time for niceties. Too many precious seconds had been lost already.

  John Randall did not have the benefits of driving an emergency vehicle but he would probably not worry too much about speed limits or the rules of the road.

  ‘South.’ Amos commanded. ‘Head for the A15.’

  Swift swung right at the end of the road and raced through back streets to pick up the main road running south out of Lincoln towards Newark. A couple of miles further on she swung left onto the A15.

  ‘Pick up the A607,’Amos said. ‘We’re going to Waddington.’

  Amos shut off the siren so they could not be heard approaching but he left the flashing lights on until, within ten minutes of setting off, Swift shot into the road where Mrs Gordon lived.

  As she swung across the road towards the drive she was forced to slam on the brakes and swerve. Two vehicles were already parked there, blocking the way in. The one nearest the house was the one that had stood there when the two officers first approached Mrs Gordon; the other was the one that Swift had seen pull up at the house where Harry Randall had died.

  Swift ended up parked erratically in the street but Amos leapt out before the car was fully stationary, shouting ‘Come on’ to Swift as he did so.

  Amos raced round the back of the police car and was into the drive before Swift had turned off the engine, pulled out the ignition keys and opened her door. Even so, being younger and fitter she was right behind Amos as he reached the front door.

  There was no need to stand on ceremony. The door was ajar, the smashed lock hanging limply.

  Amos flung open the first interior door he came to and plunged into the living room. It was empty. Thinking quickly, Swift ploughed on down the hall and into the dining room.

  John Randall was standing there, holding Mrs Gordon tightly by the hair with a knife to her throat. He turned to look as Swift burst into the room.

  The detective sergeant shouted: ‘Don’t be so stupid.’

  The force of her admonition distracted Randall, who turned to look at her. Instintively, the cowering Mrs Gordon grabbed Randall’s cheek and twisted the skin, paralyzing him. In a flash, Swift was across the room to grab his wrist and pull the knife away from Mrs Gordon’s throat.

  By now Amos was through the doorway. As Swift swung Randall forwards, Amos grabbed his other arm, Mrs Gordon let go of his face and the two officers swiftly pulled him to the floor and handcuffed his hands behind his back.

  As they kneeled panting over the prostrate Randall, Mrs Gordon pronounced calmly: ‘You should have let him kill me.’

  Chapter 40

  ‘Thanks for your gratitude, Mrs Gordon,’ Amos said drily. Rising to his feet, he ordered her to hold out her hands so that she too could be handcuffed. Having used his own cuffs to restrain John Randall, he was obliged to borrow Swift’s.

  Mrs Gordon offered no resistance. She sat down on a dining chair staring at the prostrate form of her attacker, who had broken down into sobs. Amos walked into the hall and phoned Waddington police station to arrange for a couple of officers to bring a van round to escort the prisoners back to headquarters.

  ‘Look after them for me,’ he told Swift. ‘Just so you know, we’re charging Mrs Gordon with murder and Randall with attempted murder for now. Just take your time and keep them locked up until I get back. I have a garden to tend.’

  He drove back to the house once occupied by Bradley
Irwin quickly but not as frenetically as he and Swift had made the journey in the opposite direction.

  Amos found that the police officers designated to dig over the garden patch had interpreted his ‘take your time’ instruction too literally. Very little ground had been cleared and nothing of interest had turned up.

  ‘Sorry, lads, we’re back in business,’ he informed them genially but firmly after Mrs Barclay had admitted him to the premises once more.

  The two officers set to, taking the view that if they had to dig they might as well get it over with.

  Amos turned to Mrs Barclay and asked: ‘Do you have a spade I could borrow? The sooner we get done the sooner you get your garden back in order.’

  She was not entirely averse to having her intended vegetable patch turned over free of charge and she produced the required implement from a small locked bunker next to the back wall of the house.

  After half an hour with three of them digging they were making good progress when one officer made a find. It turned out to be an old photograph. Amos took the picture, shook off the soil and studied it.

  Although the colours were faded, he could still clearly discern a young man and woman smiling happily back at him. The man was strikingly shorter than the woman.

  ‘Go carefully,’ Amos urged. ‘This is the spot.’

  Moments later the first bone was uncovered and the digging stopped immediately. This was now work for a trowel, not a spade.

  Amos stepped back a pace and looked again at the image of a beautiful young woman.

  He said quietly to himself:

  ‘She had a kindly face,

  God, in his mercy, show her grace.’

  Then aloud to the others he said: ‘We can put Bob Winchester’s mind at rest. We have finally found Rita Randall.’

  Chapter 41

  Amos left the two officers to keep the site secure while he went back to headquarters to dispatch a specialist team to complete the excavation of the site and remove the body that had lain there for the past 15 years.

  On his way through the house, he felt obliged to break the bad news to Mrs Barclay that her home would be the scene of considerable disruption and that she and her family would be besieged by the press.

  This was a story that might well make the national newspapers: two bodies discovered after 15 years with two murders sandwiched in between their discoveries made pretty sensational reading.

  ‘Is there anyone, family or friend, you could go and stay with for a few days?’ Amos asked with genuine concern.

  Mrs Barclay seemed too stunned to think straight and Amos had to get to Nettleham as soon as possible so he offered to send a female officer back to talk things through with her. Then he returned to headquarters to find out what, if anything, the two people he had arrested had to say.

  In the event, their attitudes were in sharp contrast.

  ‘Mrs Gordon first,’ Amos told Swift. ‘You can lead. I think she will talk to you rather than me.’

  Swift hid her surprise. Amos almost invariably preferred to ask the questions and he had much more idea than she did of quite what they were accusing the woman of doing.

  Mrs Gordon was brought into the interview room and Swift indicated to her to sit opposite. Amos stood back from the desk, leaving just two of the four seats occupied. Although she was sitting directly across the table from Swift, Mrs Gordon directed her answers at Amos.

  ‘You’ve been arrested and charged with the murder of Harry Randall,’ Swift said. ‘Do you have anything to tell us?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Gordon replied with an air of quiet resignation tinged, perhaps, with relief that it was all over.

  ‘Harry Randall killed my brother. In my heart of hearts I always knew he had but I couldn’t be certain until you found Brad’s body. I just never expected Randall to dump him in such an unlikely grave.’

  ‘No human being, whatever he has done, deserves that.’

  ‘And what had he done?’ Swift inquired.

  ‘Killed Rita, of course.’

  Then she said urgently: ‘Don’t judge him too harshly. He loved her desperately. He did it out of love. He couldn’t live without her.’

  ‘So you’re saying you killed Harry Randall in revenge for your brother?’ Swift prompted.

  ‘I told him 15 years ago, when Brad went missing, that if ever I found out that he had killed my brother I would have my revenge.’

  ‘It’s been a long wait,’ Amos interposed dryly.

  ‘Revenge is living long enough to get your own back,’ Mrs Gordon replied calmly and with more than a hint of satisfaction. ‘Some day the opportunity will come round.’

  ‘Do you want Mr Gudgeon to be present for this interview?’ Amos asked belatedly. Since Mrs Gordon had admitted enough to secure her conviction for murdering Randall, Amos did not want any clever lawyer claiming in court that she had been denied the opportunity for legal representation at a crucial stage of the inquiry.

  ‘Certainly not,’ Mrs Gordon replied with some vehemence. ‘I’m not having that old gasbag lecturing me. I’ll face up to what I’ve done.’

  Amos now moved forward and took the seat next to Swift.

  ‘And what you’ve done,’ he said, ‘Is more than kill Randall senior, who you might say deserved his fate. You also killed one of his neighbours, an innocent bystander.’

  ‘Innocent!’ Mrs Gordon exploded. ‘Innocent indeed. She deserved to die much more than Randall. She was going to blackmail me. I didn’t wait to give her the chance.’

  ‘Interview over,’ Amos announced perfunctorily. ‘We have another client to see.’

  Mrs Gordon was returned to the cells unceremoniously and John Paul Randall replaced her in the interview room. In sharp contrast, he turned out to be unyielding and unhelpful.

  This time Amos sat at the table straight away and took charge of the questioning.

  ‘You went round to Mrs Gordon’s house to kill her because you believed she had killed your father,’ Amos said.

  ‘You asking me or telling me?’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her. She’s still alive.’

  ‘You had a knife to her throat.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to kill her.’

  ‘So why did you have the knife to her throat?’

  ‘I just wanted her to admit she had killed my father. She threatened to kill him when Rita and Brad went missing. I haven’t done anything.’

  Amos tried a different tack: ‘Did you help your father to kill Bradley Irwin?’

  ‘No. And I’m not saying he did, either.’

  ‘But you helped him get rid of the body.’

  ‘Who says? You got proof?’

  Randall sat across from Amos with arms folded, staring him straight in the eye. Amos tried to outstare him but Randall won. Amos had very little he could pin on him.

  ‘What happened to all the photographs? Your father must have had some over the years, your mother, yourself, Rita …’

  This, at least, prompted a response and a breaking of the insistent eye contact from Randall junior.

  ‘Dad removed all the photographs when Rita died. He’d lost Mum and then Rita. He couldn’t bear to have the photographs reminding him. That’s why he moved house. There were too many memories.’

  ‘Did he interfere with Rita when she was living at home?’

  ‘How dare you?’ Randall stormed.

  ‘But you apparently thought so at one stage.’

  ‘That conversation was in confidence. She had no right to tell you. And I was wrong. Dad never touched Rita. She told me so herself.’

  ‘So why did you rarely visit him?’

  ‘Dad got withdrawn after Mum died. He was worse after we lost Rita. You couldn’t have a conversation with him. I just had to get on with my life.’

  Chapter 42

  ‘I have to say I’m glad this case is over,’ Chief Constable Sir Robert Fletcher told Amos later that afternoon.

  ‘You’ve
been remarkably profligate with our limited resources. Jenkins was stretched to the limit. And just when I needed men out on the streets visiting shopkeepers to ram home the message that we will not tolerate the poisoning of young lungs with cigarettes.’

  ‘We did have four murders to clear up,’ Amos protested, ‘even if two of them were ancient history, and we would have had another one on our conscience if we had not acted quickly.’

  ‘Yes, four murders,’ Fletcher responded hotly. ‘One of them committed right under your nose because you were too slow. And let me remind you that far more people die from lung cancer than murders. I at least get my priorities right.’

  There was no arguing with Fletcher when he was in full flood with one of his pet projects.

  Letting discretion be the better part of valour, Amos said: ‘Once we’ve cleared up the site of Rita Randall’s burial I shan’t need any uniformed officers on the case any longer, sir. They will be free to launch your life-saving campaign.’

  Fletcher stared at Amos but was unable to tell whether the detective inspector was being obsequious or sarcastic.

  After a few moments, he said: ‘I suppose you had better fill me in on the details. I must let Bob Winchester know how it all fits into place. Fine officer, Bob. He had a wonderful clear-up record. It was the only case that ever stumped him, you know.’

  ‘I’m afraid Bob Winchester allowed the Rita Randall case to become an obsession,’ Amos said. ‘He was convinced from the start that it was a missing person case and I’m afraid it clouded his judgement.Harry Randall realized what Winchester failed completely to grasp. Someone would surely have noticed a young woman walking arm in arm with a man noticeable shorter than her. The reason why no witnesses came forward to say that they had seen Rita Randall and Bradley Irwin walking to the station, or had seen her on the train, was not because they were unwilling to help. It was because the young couple never made the journey to the station in the first place.

  ‘In that case Irwin must have killed Rita on the Sunday night. He thought they would be getting engaged that weekend. She went to see him to tell him that he was getting too serious and she was moving on with her life. I believe that was the news she was going to tell her flatmate on the Monday. Irwin disposed of her body in the dark. He had no transport, so he had little choice but to conceal her on the premises in the early hours of the morning. There was one spot where he might just get away without being seen and where no-one was likely to notice that the ground had been disturbed. That was behind the garden shed. And he would have got away with it, too, had Rita’s father not worked it out from the unsuccessful reconstruction of the walk to the station that never was.