The DI Tremayne Thriller Box Set

by Phillip Strang

  ‘The golden boy,’ was Dean Winter’s reply after Tremayne and Clare had introduced themselves at the man’s house in Southampton.

  Tremayne had noticed a late-model car in the driveway, the neat and tidy house, the same as all the others in the street. It was middle-class, middle management territory, mow the lawn on a Saturday, trip to the sea on a Sunday with their two or three children, and it did not excite him.

  ‘We’ve a few questions about your brother.’

  ‘What do you want me to tell you? That he had spent a lifetime on his backside, and the most he had ever done was to walk into the pub or the local newsagent to buy a lottery ticket.’

  ‘You’re bitter about his good fortune?’ Clare asked. The two police officers and Dean Winters were sitting in the front room of the house.

  ‘Bitter, not really, but it’s ironic, isn’t it? I get out of that awful area, educate myself, put myself through university, and put in the hours, and there he is or was, sitting on sixty-eight million pounds.’

  ‘It was fairly won,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘I’m not saying it wasn’t, but there wasn’t a more undeserving person.’

  ‘Have you been up to his house since he died?’

  ‘I’ve phoned Mavis. That’ll do.’

  ‘Will it?’ Clare said.

  ‘It will for me. I’m not about to profess friendship and brotherly love now, not for you or anyone.’

  A woman busied herself in the kitchen. ‘Your wife?’ Clare asked.

  ‘Tell us about your childhood,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘Our father was a bastard, never there, and by the time I was seven, he’d disappeared.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, none of us does.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘She didn’t care. You’ve met her?’

  ‘We have,’ Clare said.

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘She seemed sad that your brother had died.’

  ‘She probably was, but it’s too little, too late for her to care.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She was always out and about. There was a succession of men pretending to be our father, some hitting us, one abusing Margie. That’s why she’s on drugs and prostituting herself. Did anyone tell you that?’

  ‘No. What happened to him?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. When Stan and Fred found out about it, they took him out of the house. He never came back.’

  ‘How old was Margie?’

  ‘Twelve, going on thirteen.’

  ‘What did Margie say?’

  ‘Nothing. She’d sit quietly after that, barely said a word to anyone. She could have done with some professional help, but we had no money, no idea where to go, and our mother just brushed it away as a foolish child’s make-believe.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Hell, no. I was two years older. I tried to pull him off of her, but he punched me in the face, broke two of my teeth. By the time I came around, the man was out of the house and down the pub. That’s when I phoned Stan. When the man returned, Stan and Fred confronted him; Stan had an old car, and they bundled him into the back seat and took off.’

  'You have your suspicions as to what happened to him?’

  ‘I was fourteen at the time. I hoped that they had killed him.’

  ‘But they never said.’

  ‘I never asked, but to them, I was just a kid. And now, they’re both in jail.’

  ‘Do you go to see them?’

  ‘Sometimes, more for Margie than for me. I like Stan, not so much Fred, but both of them were violent, and they’d been in trouble with the law in their youth. We’re not a good family, mongrel DNA, probably some inbreeding in the past. I don’t want to associate with any of them, only I feel guilt over Margie.’

  ‘Do you ever see her?’

  ‘Not for a long time. I know where she is, or which part of Salisbury she hangs out, but it’s painful to see what has become of her. Pretty when she was young, but now? I suppose she’s still pretty, but the years must have taken their toll on her, and there’s our bitch mother living with Alan. Do you think they did anything to help her? Nothing, I’ll tell you, nothing.’

  ‘You’re an angry man, Mr Winters,’ Clare said.

  ‘That’s why I keep away. I’d prefer Alan to be alive and well, and then you wouldn’t be here making me revisit the past.’

  ‘Angry enough to wish your brother dead?’

  ‘Angry, yes. But I didn’t kill him. Stan and Fred are violent, I’m not. If they weren’t in jail, I wouldn’t put it past them.’

  ‘After what they did to the man who’d raped your sister?’

  ‘I don’t know about him. And besides, it a long time ago. Don’t go raking up the past. It’s only Margie who will suffer.’

  ‘Why did you tell us?’ Clare asked.

  ‘Outside of the family, no one knows. You’re bound to want to question Margie at some time. I told you in the hope that you’ll be sensitive to her past, not too judgemental.’

  ‘We’ll not mention it to her, but, yes, you’re right. We will speak to her in the next day or so.’

  Outside Dean Winter’s house, Clare made a phone call. ‘Mavis, what do you know about Margie?’

  ‘We offered her help, even paid for a month in the same place that Bertie is.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She walked out after two days. There’s no hope for her. The offer of a place to live, treatment for her addiction, is always there. She’s a strange one.’

  Clare ended the phone call and turned to Tremayne who had lit a cigarette. ‘Someone’s not telling the truth. We’d better talk to Margie Winters as soon as possible,’ she said.

  ***

  Mavis Winters’ description of her sister-in-law, Margie, that she was a strange one, was correct. Clare could see that on meeting the woman. This time she had left Tremayne back in the office, knowing full well he wouldn’t be there long before he was out interviewing someone else. And in this case, there wasn’t a shortage of people to interview. Apart from the immediate family, there was a group who attempted to stay close to the money, as well as those who had begged: former work colleagues of Alan’s, childhood friends, the usual types that hang around money – the reason that Alan Winters, as well as Mavis, always had security.

  As Clare sat in the small room at the top of a terraced house in Wyndham Road, she could see someone who definitely needed help. Surrounded by cats, a woman bizarrely dressed in leopard-patterned stretch pants and a white blouse sat leaning back, a cigarette in a holder hanging out of her mouth.

  Clare knew her to be forty years of age, although she looked older.

  ‘You’re aware of what’s happened?’

  ‘Dead, up at Stonehenge, is that it?’

  ‘You don’t seem concerned,’ Clare said. To her, the woman seemed out of it, and if she was on the game, then she was a poor representative of her profession. Apart from the cats which smelt, the room was in a general state of disarray. Over to one side of the room there was a double bed, its sheets pulled back and clearly unchanged for some time.

  Clare prided herself that in the short time she had been in her new cottage, the restricted hours that she had to devote to such matters, it was always clean, and the bed was changed regularly, not that anyone else saw it apart from her two cats.

  ‘Mavis tried to get me to leave here and go and live with them.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I’ve got my gentlemen friends, they’d not want to go there. And what about my cats? Mavis would only let me take one of them, and I can’t part with any of them, not now, not after what we’ve been through.’

  ‘And what have you been through?’

  ‘You’d not understand,’ Margie said. As she spoke, she drank from a small glass, constantly stopping to top it up from a bottle of gin. ‘Do you want one?’ she asked.

  ‘Not for me,’ Clare said.

  ‘
They wanted to put me in a home first to clean me up.’

  ‘Mavis told me that. What happened?’

  ‘They wouldn’t let me take my cats.’

  ‘So you left?’

  ‘I’m comfortable the way I am. And they wanted me to wear their clothes. I’ve got plenty of my own.’

  At least that was true, Clare realised, as she looked inside a wardrobe to one side of the bed. It was full of clothing equally odd to what the woman was wearing, some on hangers, some just stuffed in the bottom, a cat sleeping on the pile.

  ‘Your brother has died. Were you close?’

  ‘Alan, when we were younger, but not now, not since he left home and left me on my own.’

  ‘He won a lot of money, you do know that?’

  ‘I know it, but what’s it to me? I’ve got all that I want.’

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ Clare said. ‘What do you do for a living.’

  ‘A whore, is that what they tell you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They’re right. I’m nothing but a dirty whore.’

  ‘You don’t seem concerned.’

  ‘Why should I be? Men, they’re all bastards, only after one thing. At least I make them pay these days.’

  ‘You’ve had a lifetime of abuse?’

  ‘Abuse? Men pawing me, sleeping with me, forcing their tongues down my throat.’

  ‘According to Mavis, one of your mother’s boyfriends raped you.’

  ‘Him and others.’

  Clare could tell that the woman was embittered, psychologically disturbed. She knew that may have been the alcohol and the drugs, although there was no sign of a syringe or the tell-tale signs of shooting up.

  ‘Is there anyone who would want Alan dead?’

  ‘Dead, Alan?’

  ‘I thought you understood.’

  ‘Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Sometimes I’m not sure…’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Not sure of what’s real or what’s not. Mavis wanted to lock me up, did I tell you that?’

  Clare realised that Margie Winters was not capable of murder, not even capable of looking after herself. The woman may not want to take advantage of her brother’s good fortune, but she needed help, voluntary or otherwise.

  ‘Alan, your brother? Anyone who’d want to kill him?’ Clare repeated the question.

  ‘Not him. He was everyone’s friend.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘He looked after me once, a long time ago, but now he doesn’t care.’

  Clare left the woman to her cats and her bottle of gin.

  ***

  Tremayne, as Clare had suspected, had been unable to stay in his office for more than forty-five minutes. He knew where the Winters had grown up, a council house identical to the one he had shared all those years before. He drove past the old place, smiled as he remembered Mavis and that night.

  Tremayne pulled up outside Cyril Winters’ house. A car in the driveway, a late-model BMW, a clear sign that the man had gained something from his brother’s wealth. Tremayne walked up the driveway, knocked on the door twice before there was any movement from inside. ‘What do you want?’ a voice shouted upstairs.

  ‘Detective Inspector Tremayne. I’ve got a few questions.’

  ‘Okay, hang on while I put on my trousers.’

  Five minutes later the door opened. In front of Tremayne stood a slovenly man dressed in a pair of navy tracksuit bottoms and a string vest. ‘I was having a nap,’ he said.

  ‘Cyril Winters?’

  ‘That’s me. You’re here about Alan?’

  ‘If you’ve got thirty minutes.’

  ‘Me? I’ve got all the time in the world.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I’ve retired.’

  ‘At forty-nine?’

  ‘Why not? No law that says a man has got to work until he keels over.’

  ‘I suppose not. Alan’s money?’

  ‘He gave me some, enough to live on.’

  ‘Enough to live here?’

  ‘Tremayne, I remember you from when you lived here. I was only young, but you were a snob then, thought you were better than us, and there’s your sucking up to Mavis.’

  ‘Mavis?’

  ‘She fancied you. You could have had her, and then she’d have not married Alan.’

  ‘Are you saying she’s not been a good wife to him?’

  ‘Alan was tired of her. He wanted fresh meat.’

  ‘Polly Bennett and Liz Maybury?’

  ‘Them and others.’

  ‘Who were the others?’

  ‘Whoever he wanted. There’s plenty out there wanting a man with money.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘I’ve got no money.’

  ‘But you were close to it. Attraction by association.’

  ‘I took advantage, sometimes I told them that I could get them close to Alan, get them a car, a holiday in the sun.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  Tremayne had recognised the man when he opened the door, having seen him with Alan Winters a few times. The similarities between the two men had been striking. Both men were unambitious, in poor condition, and less than ideal specimens of manhood. If the situation had been reversed, and it had been Cyril who had purchased that lottery ticket, it would be Alan living in the council house, Cyril in the mansion with the fancy cars. Tremayne realised that if he had struck lucky, unlikely given his poor record of picking the winning horses, he’d be content, although he couldn’t imagine a future without the police station on Bemerton Road. Sometimes, late at night while lying in bed, he regretted that no one was there beside him. He considered whether he and Jean should attempt to move in together again, instead of the occasional weekend, although he realised that would be doomed to failure. He was, he knew, a solitary man, comfortable in his own skin, content with his life.

  ‘Cyril, your wife?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? I married Mavis’s friend, the pretty one.’

  Tremayne cast his mind back. He recollected Mavis and a friend: the same age, dark hair, thin with a pleasant face. ‘Vaguely,’ he said.

  ‘She took off a few years back.’

  ‘Sorry about that. Any children?’

  ‘Not us. I wasn’t keen, and she wasn’t able. After growing up in a family of seven children, the last thing you want is to bring any more into the world.’

  ‘A tough childhood?’

  ‘You know it was. You know about Margie?’

  ‘My sergeant’s gone to see her. What’s the relationship with your mother?’

  ‘Alan was easier with her, more on account of Mavis.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Alan hated her. He’d have thrown her out on the street, but Mavis wouldn’t hear of it. Kept telling him that she’s his mother, and regardless of what has happened in the past, she still deserves respect.’

  ‘She didn’t look happy in his house.’

  ‘No more than a drudge, there to serve them hand and foot. Still, it’s no more than she deserves.’

  ‘Your enmity, is it as intense as your brother’s?’

  ‘If you mean that I hated her, then yes. She’d come back here, but I’ll not take her, not after what she subjected us to.’

  ‘Apart from Margie?’

  ‘Some of the men she brought home were perverts; some wanted to hit us, make us squeal, some wanted to touch us.’

  ‘Sexual abuse?’

  ‘A fancy police term, but yes.’

  ‘And what happened to these men?’

  ‘When Stan and Fred were not in jail, we’d tell them, and they’d sort it out.’

  ‘The same as the man who abused Margie?’

  ‘We never saw them again.’

  ‘Murdered?’

  ‘We were only young, but I don’t think so. Not that I cared.’

  ‘Cyril, you’re not an ambitious man, are you? Why is that?’

  ‘It’s not a cr
ime.’

  ‘I never said it was. You’ve retired to do what? And what about Mavis? Is she going to support you? She could even send your mother back here.’

  ‘I’ll not let her in the door. And Mavis, she’ll look after me.’

  ‘Are you sure? She’s not a stupid woman. The car in your driveway, she could take it back.’

  ‘She wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ll stop her.’

  ‘How? You can barely get out of bed, yet you think you can hold off a woman with that much money? Did you kill Alan? Was he starting to tighten up on you? Thought you’d have a better chance with Mavis, maybe take her out, get her drunk, get her into your bed, and then you could move into her house, is that it?’ Tremayne knew he was pushing the man to see if there was any emotion in him.

  ‘Tremayne, you’re a bastard. You were back then when you screwed Mavis in your house.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘Mavis told my wife; she told me. You’re lucky Stan and Fred didn’t know about it. They’d have sorted you out.’

  ‘The same as the other men?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What do you know? Are Stan and Fred capable of murder? What will happen when they’re released? Will they want their share of Alan’s money?’

  ‘They’re bad men, especially Fred, I’ll grant you that. None of us is looking forward to the day when he is released.’

  ‘How long before they’re out?’

  ‘Stan’s out in thirteen, maybe fourteen months; Fred’s got another three years. Alan wasn’t concerned.’

  ‘Alan’s dead, Mavis is alive, the same as you. Will they be around here looking for accommodation, looking for you to help them?’

  ‘With Stan, I’ve no idea.’

  Tremayne could see that Cyril was typical Winters stock in that he contributed little to society. The man seemed incapable of anything other than a general apathy, and if the mother were foisted on him, his complaints would be muted. He could not see the man as a murderer. Stan and Fred were possible, although their dealings with the mother’s previous lovers were in the past; if there was a case to be answered, it was for others to investigate, a cold case, but Tremayne assumed it wouldn’t be. The men who had died, if that had indeed happened, were possibly low achievers, probably criminals, and their disappearances would not have registered significantly in any database.