Burial Mound

by Phillip Strang

  Tremayne perused the report that Clare had prepared on Wetherell. He wasn’t a man given to studying written documents in detail, and it was still up to Clare to give him a verbal précis.

  ‘He’s no fool,’ Clare said. ‘Violent in his youth, that’s proven by the two police cases against him.’

  ‘Liz Fairweather, what about her? She’s fooling around with Wetherell and others, not the saint that you might want to portray her as. If Wetherell is at the demonstrations, what about her? Where was she? Holding the placard, throwing rocks?’

  ‘There are no convictions against her name, and yes, she would have been at some. Mostly protests against one or another government policy, the compulsory purchase of low-cost housing for an airport runway or a new road, train line, whatever.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Not totally. They were radical back then, and Liz Fairweather’s indicated that she was one of the more extreme, not that you’d know it now. We were all a bit silly in our youth,’ Clare said.

  ‘I didn’t go around throwing rocks, protesting against the government. So much nonsense, if you ask me.’

  Clare had to agree with her senior. She couldn’t imagine him wasting energy on causes, no matter how relevant. Tremayne, she knew, was a plodder, a decent man who did his job and was ruthlessly honest. That was what she liked about him, an open book.

  ‘We still come back to the burial mound and how Richard Grantley is involved with Liz Fairweather and by default Wetherell and Yatton. What’s the deal with Yatton?’ Tremayne asked. The man interested him more, an academic who would know about Bronze Age burial mounds and their significance.

  ‘He studied with Liz Fairweather, a similar area of interest. Wetherell studied politics. Yatton was involved with the student union, as were Wetherell and Liz.’

  ‘Liz is it now?’

  ‘I’m focussing on my job. What do you want me to call her? Ms or Miss or Professor?’

  ‘As long as you don’t get emotional. My money’s still on Clive Grantley and Ms Fairweather,’ Tremayne said, emphasising the ‘Ms’, knowing that it would irritate his sergeant.

  ‘My money isn’t. We’ve got no tie-in with Richard Grantley for any of the three university anarchists. Grace Thornberry’s the only one who had any meaningful contact with him.’

  ‘She couldn’t have done it, and her husband isn’t the sort to get off his backside unless it’s for a McDonald’s cheeseburger with fries.’

  ‘He may have when he was hungry, although he doesn’t look the sort to get excited about anything much. As long as life rolls along in a more or less pleasant manner, then he’s no threat to anyone.’

  ‘After we left the Thornberrys, did you check with the wife?’

  ‘A flaming row, a slammed door as he sulked off to the pub. He came home in the early hours of the morning smelling like a brewery and ended up sleeping downstairs.’

  ‘Life washes over those two. It’s hard to believe she was a knockout when she was younger.’

  ‘We all get old, even you, Inspector Tremayne,’ Clare said. Her turn for emphasis after the earlier ‘Ms’ from Tremayne.

  ‘Getting back to Yatton, what can you tell us about him?’

  ‘Montgomery Yatton, although he uses Monty. A similar academic path to Liz Fairweather. No convictions, although he did take part in some of the protests. I managed to find a few newspaper clippings from the period, and he’s there, as are Liz and Wetherell. Yatton’s a slight man, not tall, and compared to Wetherell, over six feet tall and strong, he looks vaguely effeminate.’

  ‘At the protests?’

  ‘His picture is on the University of Dundee’s website. A balding man, gaunt, and he doesn’t look well. I can’t be certain on that, though.’

  ‘Have you made contact with either of the two men?’

  ‘Not yet. I thought that I should run it past you first. We can then decide on our course of action. Personally, I’m inclined to go with Yatton, try and understand the reason for the burial mound.’

  ‘Was Liz Fairweather keen on either of these two men or were they just drunken flings, fellow Bolsheviks sharing bodily fluids?’

  ‘Casual, according to her. As she’s said, she was just going with the flow, living the life of the committed socialist and sleeping around was expected.’

  ‘So why did she choose those two to reveal to you?’

  ‘A question that’s not been fully answered yet. I have to agree with you that Clive Grantley and Liz Fairweather are still the most likely candidates for a conviction.’

  ‘Don’t say it for me. Say it because as a police officer you believe it.’

  ‘As a police officer, who else could have been responsible?’

  ‘No one else, not until we make the tie-in between Richard Grantley and others.’

  ‘I’m still following through with Richard Grantley being undercover, an operative for the security services in this country.’

  ‘It’ll be hard to find out the truth, Official Secrets Act.’

  Chapter 14

  Superintendent Moulton approved the travel request, Clare booked the tickets. Monty Yatton had been contacted and told firmly – he had protested fervently to Clare on the phone – that he would need to be available from midday until 6 p.m. the next day.

  ‘I’ve got lectures to prepare, research to conduct, and besides, it was a long time ago. You can’t expect me to remember back then. I’ve never heard of a Richard Grantley. Sure, I read about it, a burial mound, a great deal of treasure. I know Gerard Horsley; I’ve arranged to come down at some stage and meet him.’

  ‘Liz Fairweather?’

  ‘I know her, but what’s it got to do with me?’

  Regardless of the man’s protestations, he would be available.

  Early next morning Clare and Tremayne drove down to Southampton Airport. She parked in the long-stay parking, as an overnight stay in Dundee was required. She could see that Tremayne was salivating at the opportunity of drinking more than he should, maybe even smoking a cigarette.

  On arrival in Edinburgh, the nearest direct flight from Southampton, Clare handed over a credit card to the rental car company, and got a blue Toyota Corolla in return. It was just after ten-thirty in the morning when they drove up to the university, time enough for them to find a place for lunch, a chance to compare notes, and to check in at the Premier Inn on Riverside Drive. It was close enough to the university to walk, but Tremayne declined the opportunity for some much-needed exercise. He didn’t mention to Clare that his left knee was troubling him, knowing full well that she would tell Jean who’d fuss on his return to Salisbury. And then he’d be seeing the doctor and then the specialist, both probing, x-rays, bone density tests, whatever else, a possible knee joint replacement, early retirement. For now, he would keep quiet.

  Monty Yatton arrived at his office five minutes after the agreed time. ‘Sorry about that. The lecture went over time.’

  He was a gaunt man, as his photo on the university website had shown, although he was older by five to ten years. The balding crown of his head was still there, but the wispy growth on the sides was gone, and he was cleanly shaven. Clare could see that he was not a bad-looking man, though nothing remarkable, with a slightly beaked nose on which perched a pair of frameless spectacles. He no longer wore a tattered Ban the Bomb tee shirt and jeans, preferring now to wear a roll neck sweater and a tweed jacket. The top hat was gone too.

  ‘Inspector Tremayne and Sergeant Yarwood,’ Tremayne said as he shook the man’s hand.

  Yatton declined to shake Clare’s hand. ‘I’ve got a germ phobia. The inspector caught me by surprise. I hope you’ll excuse me.’

  ‘Of course,’ Clare said, although she couldn’t understand why the man who had a phobia wore a sweater that smelt from the lack of a good wash, and he worked in an office surrounded by dirt and decay.

  ***

  Des Wetherell, aware of the complication of his past history intervening in the present, sat i
n his office. An attractive man, tall and not overweight, even though life had been good to him, better than most of his union members he would admit, sat back in the expensive leather chair. Across from him, his two lawyers, one paid by the union, the other paid by him.

  ‘I’m expecting the police to contact me soon, to come here and conduct an official interview,’ Wetherell said.

  ‘Do you have anything to hide?’ Justin Ruxton said. He was a fresh-faced man in his mid-thirties. Four years with the union. He still had a degree of naivety, as well as respect for the man opposite who had brought him on board.

  Wetherell knew he was a good judge of people, but he would never have said it. To the rank and file unionist, he was a self-effacing man, capable of espousing their cause when required, which had been increasingly often in the last seven months. The position of Deputy General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, the TUC, the federation of the majority of the trade unions in England and Wales, with a membership of over 5.6 million, had become vacant, and it was a position he wanted. The last thing he needed was the diversion of a murder enquiry, even though he knew he was innocent. And as for that rock-throwing incident, the woman’s death, he wanted it kept quiet, and that needed sharp lawyers, the subtle threat of legal action if anyone or any organisation attempted to raise it.

  Why Liz Fairweather had mentioned his and Yatton’s names, he wasn’t sure. He had never given her much credence at university, not that he could remember her much. Sure, he had slept with her on more than a few occasions, but so had others, including the wimpish Yatton, so she couldn’t have been that fussy.

  ‘Why worry? Your position’s unassailable,’ said Nigel Nicholson, the more senior of the two lawyers, and the one that Wetherell trusted above the other.

  ‘Mud sticks and you know it.’

  ‘What do you want us to do?’ Ruxton asked. He had known the man for some years, and he had never seen him as concerned before. He wondered if there was more to the story of a long-dead man than Wetherell was telling them. Even if there was, Wetherell had been the man who had mentored him, the man who had trusted him with a senior position in the union’s hierarchy. He wouldn’t let him down, he knew that.

  ‘Don’t let the mud be seen. Squash any rumours, dissent, anyone who threatens my aspirations. In short, do what you’ve always done.’

  ‘Then level with us. Your conviction for manslaughter, overturned on appeal, is on the public record. Your membership of the communist party as a radical university student is known. What else is there?’ Nicholson asked. He had known Wetherell for a long time, having met the man after both of them had finished university. Diverse backgrounds, but a shared friendship forged over many years.

  ‘There’s no more to tell,’ Wetherell replied. Nicholson knew there was. He was curious about whether the bombing of a polling station to the north of London during Wetherell’s university days had anything to do with his friend and most important client. No one had been hurt, and it had been put down to an anarchist group opposing the primary candidate, a man of dubious right-wing views. If it had involved Wetherell, then he, even with all his legal expertise, wouldn’t be able to prevent the mud sticking.

  ***

  Monty Yatton was a nervous man, not used to being questioned by the police. His nervousness translated itself into talking excessively, diverging from the subject, rattling on at a breakneck speed about the lectures he took, the students – bone idle, half of them, in his estimation – and how they cheated at exam time if they could, shirked their workload on group activities, and that it wasn’t the same in his days at university. Clare knew that the man’s estimation of those in his charge was incorrect, and she had worked hard, as had the others in her time at university. The man appeared to have a down on people, on life in general.

  ‘Mr Yatton,’ Clare said, impatient with the man’s verbosity. ‘Richard Grantley was murdered. Does that name have any significance to you?’

  ‘Only from what’s on the internet. You mentioned Liz Fairweather before. I do remember her and our time at university.’

  ‘Ms Fairweather mentioned that you may be able to help us.’

  ‘With what? I haven’t seen her since, not often that is; university functions only. We were all a bit wild back then, and I used to go around in some strange clothes.’

  ‘Radical?’

  ‘Some of us were. Liz was definitely. I thought it was a bit of a lark, a chance to experiment with drugs.’

  ‘And get laid,’ Tremayne interjected.

  ‘I didn’t want to say it, not in front of a lady.’

  ‘Liz mentioned it to me. There’s no need to be polite in my presence,’ Clare said indignantly. She had had this deference to her sex on several occasions before. The police badge should have obviated her from such discrimination. ‘You screwed Liz as well as others?’

  ‘We were on heat, like rabbits, and if you’ve ever smoked what we had, you’d understand.’

  Tremayne didn’t, his drug of choice was cigarettes, and sitting in that dusty office he could have quite happily lit up. Clare had had a brief encounter with marijuana as a teenager, but had not had any great fondness for it, and had never smoked.

  ‘Do you still take drugs?’ Tremayne asked. Clare could tell that her senior had not warmed to the man.

  ‘Some weed at the weekend, nothing like I used to.’

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘I was once, but it didn’t last.’

  Clare was sure that the man was a latent homosexual and that his promiscuity at university, his sleeping with Liz, his short-lived marriage, had been attempts to conceal the fact. Not that she had any opinions about someone being gay or not. It didn’t concern her either way, and she would have thought that academia was tolerant of all people – as long as they didn’t murder someone and bury them in a Bronze Age burial mound, that is.

  ‘What’s Liz got to do with a murdered man?’ Yatton asked.

  It was a fair question. So far Tremayne and Clare had managed to skate around revealing too much, but Yatton had a right to know, a probable area of investigation missed if the right questions weren’t asked.

  ‘We’re concerned that Richard Grantley, a man adept at concealing himself, may, as a result of anarchist activities by you and others at university, have infiltrated your group.’

  ‘We weren’t anarchists; just university students attempting to right the wrongs of the world.’

  ‘You were determined to overthrow the government, to install a new order.’

  ‘Big Brother, 1984, that sort of thing,’ Clare said.

  ‘You know your classics,’ Yatton said. ‘It’s good to see someone who does. Most of my students could give you an essay on the lives of vacuous celebrities, their idealised lives, their multiple lovers, but ask them if they’ve read Orwell or Huxley or Charles Dickens, and most of them will look at you as though you’re talking a foreign language. And before we go further, the world defined in Orwell’s 1984 was not the world that we envisaged. That book was a satire. And, no, I don’t love Big Brother. Never did really, but it was fun for a while, Liz was fun.’

  ‘Any other women?’ Tremayne asked. He had not followed the previous intellectual conversation between two people better educated than him. He did not intend for them to continue into areas that did not assist the interview.

  ‘Some. The names are vague now. I’m not sure if I can remember more than three or four of the group.’

  ‘Des Wetherell?’

  ‘You couldn’t forget Wetherell. The man was full-on, even back then. He’s quite a celebrity these days. He had a fling with Liz.’

  ‘Wetherell’s an agitator, always baiting the government, denouncing the more foolish of their decisions,’ Tremayne said. ‘Was he capable of coercive action?’

  ‘Violence, causing physical harm, damaging property?’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘He was certainly more ardent than me. I didn’t mind marching up and down waving a
banner. Ban the Bomb was a bit before my time even if I had the tee shirt. But we would make the banners, take the train to London and march up Whitehall, down past the Houses of Parliament. Gay rights were one of our causes, although I don’t think Wetherell took that too seriously.’

  ‘But you did,’ Clare said.

  ‘It had more relevance to me. I was suppressing it back then, but today, who cares?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘There was a campaign to bring back capital punishment, but a few people had been executed in the past who were innocent. You must know that. Some of it was through not having DNA, some as a result of the police looking for a conviction.’

  ‘Before my time,’ Tremayne said. ‘The last execution in England was in 1964.’

  ‘One politician was keen to bring it back, so were some of the police. There had been an upsurge in violent crime, the murder statistics were up. We were against hanging, even considered positive action.’

  ‘Bombing of a polling station?’

  ‘It wasn’t us, and besides, we were high as kites most of the time. Wetherell breezed through university, passed with honours. The rest of us gave thirty, maybe forty per cent to studying, the rest to getting drunk, getting laid and proselytising.’

  ‘Was the man guilty of the bombing of the polling station, other acts of anarchy? Was Richard Grantley one of your group?’

  ‘Who knows with Wetherell? The man always came up smelling of roses, always smarter than anyone else. He could have belonged to other subversive elements, but we wouldn’t have known. We were just university students, full of hormones, full of a belief in our intelligence, our capabilities, our determination for a better world.’

  ‘Did you find it?’

  ‘Dundee University, yes, I believe so.’

  ‘Your life now?’

  ‘Mundane, the opportunity for study, for research.’