Dead People

by Ewart Hutton

  I sat at the big square limed-oak table in front of the Rayburn and squinted at the low evening sun streaming in through the window, dust motes jigging like live gnats.

  ‘Thanks for this, Mac,’ I said.

  He raised his mug in salute. ‘No problem.’ His Scottish accent had softened from years of having to slow his speech down to be understood.

  ‘How do you reckon they worked it?’ I asked.

  He didn’t have to ponder, which was slightly disturbing. ‘Pilot light off, for starters. Then they run the cooker-ring taps full-on to get the gas–air mix up to the right proportions. After that it’s just a question of keeping that balance going. A little nick in the feed supply, some compensatory ventilation, and then they rig-up a spark device that’s going to be triggered by the door opening.’ He clapped his hands together, then threw his arms out into wide arcs, like a physicist explaining the big-bang theory. ‘Whatever they used, it’s going to be blown the fuck to kingdom come when that mother goes up and become untraceable.’

  ‘How come no one smelled it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Student accommodation. Rancid Central. Curries, pizzas, last year’s dishes still piled in the sink. And they probably laid a light seal at the bottom of the front door. A damp tea towel? Something that’s not going to look out of place in a burned-out messy flat, but not something that’s going to jam the door when they try opening it.’

  ‘Does this narrow things down for me?’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Am I looking for an expert? Someone trained in sabotage techniques?’

  ‘It sounds like whoever rigged it knew what they were doing.’ He pulled a face. ‘But that doesn’t mean it’s the guy you’re looking for. These people are out there for hire.’

  ‘So it doesn’t necessarily point me at soldiers?’

  He shook his head regretfully.

  ‘Talking about soldiers, has anything more come up about Greg Thomas’s breakdown?’

  ‘Sorry, medical records are a bit hard to access. I’ve talked to some guys I worked with over there, and they’re spreading the word. But those were interesting times in that part of the world.’ He chuckled grimly at the memory. ‘Somehow, we had a lot better things to occupy us than worrying about a guy in communications who was buying his ticket to the funny farm.’

  ‘His fiancée died about the same time.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Some kind of an accident.’ It suddenly hit me. I had never asked how Rose Jones had died. It had been fifteen years ago, and I had just assumed that it had lain outside the frame of reference.

  ‘You okay?’

  I returned to the planet to see Mackay watching me with some concern. I nodded. ‘Can you get back to your guys and give them another bit of information. See if the name Rose Jones does anything.’

  ‘Okay.’ He nodded carefully, but still hadn’t taken his eyes off of me. ‘Do you want me to come to Dinas with you and watch your back?’

  It was tempting.

  One way forward would be to create a crisis and send Mackay running in through the front door, guns blazing, so I could be there to net whoever came flying out through the back door.

  Only two problems there. What crisis? And whose front door?

  Regretfully, I declined his offer.

  14

  It was dark when I got back to Dinas. The fine day had left its legacy in a clear night, with stars already visible; probably a few planets up there, too, if I knew where to look. I knew enough of the lore by now to recognize that there would be a frost in the morning. Unit 13 would become the home for all the stray condensation in the neighbourhood once again.

  The Audi TT and the Porsche Cayenne were parked out in front, but the lights were out in the Barn Gallery. The steps up to the house were illuminated by small bulkhead lights set in the stone treads, and a motion-activated security light came on as I approached the front door. I had already clocked the CCTV cameras on a previous visit, so I knew that my arrival was not going to be a secret.

  But Gloria still played along with the game.

  ‘Glyn!’ she announced. ‘What a nice surprise. Come on in.’

  The hall floor was deep-blue polished slate with a red-and-yellow-ochre Persian rug, and an open-tread oak staircase leading up to a gallery with a green-tinted glass balustrade. The interior of the house had obviously been scooped out and remodelled, the original rustic Welsh replaced by architectural chic.

  ‘I hope this is social.’

  I pulled a rueful face. ‘Business, I’m afraid. And I’m sorry to call so late, but I need to talk to your brother-in-law.’

  She didn’t drop the happy-hostess face, but a small spark of curiosity jumped in her eyes. ‘I’ll put you in the study and go and see how he’s fixed.’

  She opened one of the matching oak doors off the hall, switched on a light, and stood aside to let me enter. ‘What’s your schedule for after?’ she asked in a quieter voice.

  I shook my head regretfully. ‘Catching up on paperwork.’

  ‘If you change your mind . . .’ She brushed the back of my hand with hers, and replicated the invitation in her expression as she left.

  What would I have seen in a mirror if I had looked then? What had changed in the last few days to make me desirable?

  I didn’t have time to look around for a mirror. Clive Fenwick emerged from the door on the opposite side of the hall, and approached carrying a heavy glass tumbler of ice-murdered whisky, to signal that this was an interruption.

  He had the meticulous scrutinizing squint of a VAT inspector or a serious bridge player, and his tight and slender build proclaimed that there was more to his recreational activities than just playing golf. Squash? Tennis? Something that he would make sure that he was good at.

  He was of medium height, with male-pattern baldness, the remaining hair on the side of his head close-cropped and allowing the first of the grey to show. I put him in his late forties, early fifties. An oval face, smooth features, small frameless glasses, thin lips and no smile. His clothes were restrained designer label.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’ I started to offer my hand, but an instinct told me that he would only make a virtue out of ignoring it.

  ‘Can you show me your identity, please, Sergeant?’ There was a chill of superiority in the request.

  I produced my warrant card. Do whatever the customer requires, I told myself.

  ‘Thank you.’ He nodded curtly. ‘The women never inspect these things properly.’ He stared at me impatiently, no attempt to put me at my ease.

  ‘How well did you know Evie Salmon, Mr Fenwick?’

  ‘She was the young woman whose body you found. She also used to pester my wife and Gloria for a job.’ He smiled snidely. ‘Which part of that weren’t you expecting me to answer?’

  ‘The question was how well you knew her.’

  It caught him off guard for a beat. ‘And why has this question been raised?’

  The clever bastard had parried me. I had wanted him to deny knowing her. I had wanted to trump this cold fucker with my big card. ‘We have a witness who claims that you may be the last person she was in contact with in Dinas on the day she left.’

  He frowned. ‘Left?’

  ‘She left home two years ago.’

  He gave me a look of astonishment. ‘I’m supposed to know this? And you seriously expect me to remember what I was doing in Dinas two years ago?’

  ‘She was seen approaching your car.’

  He raised his head and spread his hands in a give-me-strength gesture. ‘And on the basis of that, you’ve come round here two years later, not just interrupting me, but with a latent threat.’

  ‘There was no threat, Mr Fenwick.’

  He ignored me. ‘Just because some young woman, who I’ve never met, was seen near my car, I’m hauled in as the last person to see her.’ He fixed me with a cold, angry glare. ‘And all because I have a distinctive car. I think that you’ve allowed yourself to b
e hijacked by the politics of envy, Sergeant.’

  ‘You never met Evie Salmon?’ I kept my own anger in check.

  He dipped his head. ‘That’s what I’ve just said. She may have been seen approaching my car, but that coincidence is as far as the connection goes. Isabel and Gloria can corroborate the fact that neither my brother Derek nor I ever met her.’ His eyes bored into me again from behind his glasses, and I caught a glint of hostile amusement in them. ‘And if you want to ask them, it would imply that you don’t believe me.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary, Mr Fenwick.’ I forced myself to keep crawling. ‘And once again, I apologize for the intrusion.’

  I asked to say goodbye to Gloria. He made a point of ushering me out of the study and closing the door, before brusquely instructing me to wait in the hall. Gloria came out with a smile on her face that was trying hard not to upgrade to a smirk.

  ‘Changed your mind?’ she asked cockily.

  I shook my head. ‘Sorry, the paperwork’s still waiting for me.’ I inclined my head towards the door that Clive had gone through. ‘What does he drink?’

  She pulled a quizzical frown.

  ‘Was that whisky?’

  ‘I think so. Horrible stuff, I don’t touch it.’

  ‘Could you find out for me, please?’ I asked nicely. I was just about to leave when I remembered something else, and turned on the threshold. ‘Swansea.’

  She frowned, puzzled. ‘What about it?’

  ‘You don’t have a holiday home down there as well, do you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. But Clive and Derek keep a boat down at the Mumbles. That’s near there, I think?’

  ‘You don’t go there?’

  ‘No, Isabel and I keep well away. All that nasty, cold, wet water.’

  The Mumbles. The Gower Peninsula. A geographical bull’s-eye. But I hadn’t been able to shake him up on the Evie front.

  Clive Fenwick was good. He was a gold-medal Olympic eventer in stonewalling.

  But was he lying? He was supremely confident that the Fenwick women would back up his claim that he didn’t know Evie. But that was just common sense. If he was screwing around he wouldn’t have broadcast it to his wife or his sister-in-law. And he could have met her independently. Or seen her hanging around from afar and decided that she was just the right ripe young ticket to set up in a fuck pad. To share with his brother?

  Near where they kept their boat? The environs of Swansea and the Gower Peninsula, where Evie had told Justin the love of her life was located.

  Because an insecure and impressionable young woman like Evie could easily have mistaken his nasty, domineering arrogance for supreme confidence and control. She didn’t have the same experience of life’s shits that I’d had, so where I saw self-centred boorishness, she might have read élan and urbanity.

  I glanced over at the lights of the Activity Centre at Fron Heulog. They bordered Bruno’s land. And Rose, Greg’s fiancée’s death was now nagging me. But Greg was another one who had claimed no knowledge of Evie.

  I closed my eyes tightly to redirect my concentration. Because this wasn’t just about Evie. I had to keep reminding myself about that. Although perhaps she hadn’t just been thrown into the pot at random to confuse us. Maybe her murder had been more expedient than that. A passion gone sour? But what was the possible connection with any of these people to the other three bodies?

  Where was I going to find the crisis to smoke the bastard out with?

  Or could I be circling the wrong tree? Was my guy someone who wasn’t even on my radar? I didn’t want to consider that one. But this was getting depressing. Finding myself coming up short every time I thought I was about to get an answer.

  My phone beeped at the bottom of the Barn Gallery drive to let me know I had received a text message.

  When you’re finished chasing married women, come and buy me a drink at The Fleece. Tx.

  I smiled. From the tone it looked like I might have been forgiven. My mood tilted up the graph. If I was somehow in the middle of a desirability phase, secreting pheromones like a musk ox, then I may as well try to capitalize on it.

  Tessa was sitting on her own with a tablet computer and a glass of white wine on the table in front of her. She looked up at me with a smile set for chagrin. ‘I’m so, so sorry, Glyn. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’

  ‘It’s okay, you were upset.’

  ‘And a real bitch.’ She winced theatrically. ‘And to think that I had been giving you the relationship third degree.’

  ‘As I said, it’s okay.’ I sat down.

  ‘Thanks.’ She leaned over and squeezed my hand briefly, then cocked her head and made a show of scrutinizing me from a number of different angles.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Checking for signs of exhaustion.’

  ‘Concerned that I might be overworking?’

  She grinned. ‘No, shagged out.’ She saw the question pop up in my face. ‘We saw your car in the driveway at the Barn Gallery when we came past.’

  I held up my right hand. ‘Strictly business, Scouts’ honour.’

  ‘Grrr . . .’ She reached out a clawed hand and made a pantomime show of raking my face. ‘But seriously, what do you make of that outfit?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘How can they make any money?’

  ‘I think they’re in a different league from us, Dr MacLean. I don’t think they have to make any money.’

  She pondered that. ‘How’s your case coming on?’

  ‘If I said “slowly”, that would imply some sort of progress. In terms of movement, think pogo stick. I keep bouncing back to the point I’ve just left.’

  ‘As bad as that?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You need a holiday,’ she instructed.

  I spread my arms wide. ‘People come here for their holidays.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather be in Italy?’

  A lot of people asked me that. I gave her my stock answer. ‘One day, I’ll spend some serious time there.’

  She looked surprised. ‘You don’t go back?’

  ‘We only ever went there a few times when we were kids. Travelling wasn’t so easy then, and my parents couldn’t afford it.’ I looked at her apologetically. ‘And I have to confess that I didn’t really like it.’

  ‘Shame on you.’

  ‘The food was strange, I couldn’t understand the language, and the local bad boys used to beat me up in an attempt to impress my sister.’

  She laughed.

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that it got even less exotic. Summer holidays used to be a caravan at Borth. That memory took me off on a tangent. The couple of really wonderful summers we had spent with the Scottish branch of the Capaldi clan on Great Cumbrae island in the Firth of Clyde. Where someone’s uncle had a boat, and I got to hang out with the wild Mackay cousins who used to be able to start the engine with a carved iced-lolly stick.

  ‘You look happier,’ she said, breaking into the memory.

  ‘I’m sorry, I was miles away.’

  She gave me a concerned look. ‘You’re tired.’ She inclined her head to the side. I followed her line of sight and saw two of her charges playing pool. ‘I’d invite you back for cocoa, but I’m in Mother Hen mode again tonight.’

  When I left The Fleece a little later and alone I picked up a text message from Gloria. It informed me that Clive drank Jim Beam.

  Philistine.

  It was only when I was nearly home that the thought came to me. It was strong enough to make me turn back. I drove past Pen Twyn and the Barn Gallery, and turned around to come back the other way. The way that Tessa would have come.

  Even going slowly, with my headlights on full beam, I couldn’t pick out the parking area in front of the Barn Gallery.

  *

  Tessa had lied to me. And why had she changed so abruptly from the Ice Queen one minute, banishing me from her kingdom, to the Sister of Mercy stroking
my wearied brow the next? This had to be more than just the normal strangeness of women’s ways.

  Nothing was making sense. There were too many mysteries.

  And it was literally freezing in Unit 13. I turned the gas fire up full, wrapped myself in a blanket, sat down on the banquette seat and stared at the map of the wind-farm site pinned to the opposite wall. This was becoming a habit.

  Talk to me, I urged it.

  Tessa had been right. I was tired. But underneath that, I felt a buzz. An excitement. Something was taking shape. I couldn’t put form to it yet, or resolve anything, I just had to be patient and wait for it to surface.

  I reviewed what I had.

  My hunch was still telling me that Gerald Evans probably had nothing to do with the bodies on the hill. But he had lied to me. ‘Grass Vegas’ meant he had got closer to Evie than he had admitted. He was a conduit to her other life, and I now had leverage on him.

  Clive Fenwick claimed to have no knowledge of Evie. But he had the right geography. His boat at the Mumbles put him in the territory.

  Greg Thomas was another one who denied knowing Evie. Could there be a connection between her and his dead fiancée? Although there was that huge dilemma. Something like eight years between her death and the first burial. If the killings and burials constituted a memorial dedicated to Rose, why had there been such a long delay in crafting it?

  And, while I was making lists, Owen Jones had seemed more-than-naturally close to his sister. Her death would also have affected him badly. But he was in Africa.

  It was so cold the next morning that I woke to find that my breath had turned to ice on the window. I dressed in my clothes and blanket and wiped a patch clear on the window. The frost on the grass a trapped white shimmer, but a pure-blue sky with the promise of early spring sunshine.

  Nature had waited until the day of Evie’s funeral to pour its grace down on her.

  I had time before Mackay delivered Justin to me. I drove over to the police house where I found Emrys Hughes watching Friel wash their car.

  ‘We’re busy, Capaldi,’ Emrys greeted me fondly.