Burial Mound

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Ancient history?’

  ‘That’s correct. I’ve followed Horsley’s success with great interest. We’ve attended conferences together. I can’t say I remember him, but he says that he knows me. Not surprising as I’ve often presented papers. Now he’s the star, the one spoken of in hallowed archaeological circles. A great find, credit to him.’

  ‘Bronze Age England, a burial mound. What’s the significance?’ Tremayne asked.

  ‘The more important the person laid to rest inside, the larger the mound, the choicer the location.’

  ‘And close to Stonehenge?’

  ‘Highly significant. Not all the mounds have been opened, and some are not visible after millennia, some have faded into the surrounding area.’

  ‘Why would someone bury Richard Grantley in one?’

  ‘If it weren’t murder, I’d say it was a mark of respect, an honour accorded to few.’

  ‘Or a form of sarcasm.’

  ‘It could be, but why bother? If the body’s not discovered, what’s the point?’

  ‘Psychopathic, deranged, a distorted view of reality, an attempt at self-justification for killing the man?’

  ‘Someone with an intimate knowledge of Bronze Age England, more likely.’

  The day with Monty Yatton was concluded; interviewing the man was not. Based on what he had said, there was the need to delve further into Des Wetherell’s life, to find out if he had, in fact, belonged to other groups; whether he had been an anarchist committed to action, not words, as it appeared that Yatton was.

  Chapter 15

  Liz Fairweather was not pleased about Clare phoning late at night.

  ‘We’ve just spent the day with Monty Yatton,’ Clare said. She had returned to the hotel at six in the evening, had a meal with Tremayne, and then had spent three hours researching anarchy groups of England and their actions, violent or peaceful. The majority appeared to have been strong on rhetoric, weak on action.

  ‘I gave you his name. I didn’t expect you to contact me about him.’

  ‘Why did you give me the names of Des Wetherell and Monty Yatton? You must have realised that they’d know it was you and that they’d start asking questions as to why you had involved them.’

  ‘Did you tell them?’

  ‘Not directly. Yatton was curious, but we brushed over it. He told us that you had had a fling with him, but he wasn’t the only one. A bit of a tart, he said.’ Clare knew that Yatton hadn’t said that, but she was looking for a reaction from the previously unflappable Liz.

  ‘I gave you their names because they were more serious than us. Des was capable of going to the next stage, and Monty was smart enough to rig a bomb or a remote-control detonator.’

  ‘You have proof they committed criminal acts?’

  ‘No.’

  Clare did not believe her. The woman was digging herself in deeper, about to fall into a hole from which there was no escape.

  ‘Des Wetherell?’ Liz asked.

  ‘Not yet. After we leave Dundee, we’ll probably meet with him. He’s aware of our interest in him, a letter from his lawyer informing us that Mr Wetherell resents any aspersion that he’s involved in the death of a man he has never met, never heard of.’

  ‘Does Des know that I gave you his name?’

  ‘Not from us, he doesn’t.’

  ‘But he will.’

  ‘How can we prevent him? He’ll have legal advisors with him, and they’ll not let us hide the truth, even if we want to. You must have known this. Why did you give us those two names, not others?’

  ‘I just told you. Des was capable of violent action, Monty would have been his able lieutenant, scared to act himself, willing to assist someone else, and in this case, Des.’

  ‘Liz, you’re holding back. This is not looking good for you and Clive Grantley, and what about Kim? Have you considered where this is heading? How she’ll feel when we arrest the two of you.’

  ‘We are innocent of all crimes.’

  ‘Not from where I’m sitting. I’ve gone out of my way to go easy on you. Inspector Tremayne thinks I’ve gone soft, and he’s right, but I can’t let you keep hiding information from me out of misguided loyalty to Clive.’

  ‘When you get back to Salisbury, we will meet with him, thrash it out, come to a decision and hopefully a solution to the murder of his brother.’

  Clare ended the phone conversation and lay on her bed. Sleep was not going to come soon, not that night.

  ***

  Clive Grantley paced around the living room at his house; Kim sat to one side, trying to read a book. In the weeks since the discovery of Richard Grantley’s body, she had spent increasing amounts of time with her father, although she had never called him that. To her, he had always been the man that her mother had loved with a passion in her youth, the man who had given her a child. To Kim, he was the most important man in her life, and she was troubled. Not because he was guilty of a crime; she knew that could never be the case, as he was the most decent man she had ever known, one of the two rocks in her life, her mother being the other. It was because the privacy that he regarded as paramount was under threat. Secrets were being revealed, people were pointing fingers, casting sly gazes as he walked in the street, speaking in whispers if he was with her.

  ‘It’s too much,’ Clive said as he finally sat down. ‘The police are asking questions of your mother, revealing her earlier life.’

  Kim had not known of the past in detail before, but did now, as she had paid a visit to her mother, spent the night at her house. Over a bottle of red wine, Liz had laid out her earlier years in detail, told Kim about her fascination with communism, the protests, the men she had known, carnally and otherwise.

  Kim had been shocked at the mention of Des Wetherell, not the number of lovers. After all, she knew that her mother shared the same bed with Clive when he visited, although it came as a surprise when her mother told her that nothing ever happened. A goodnight kiss, maybe, but no more. But Des Wetherell was unexpected.

  ‘You’ve seen him on the television, you know all about him,’ Liz had said.

  Yes, Kim did know about him. She had studied politics at university, spent time at Westminster, a junior aide to an up and coming politician by the name of Hazel Waverley. The politician, in her forties with the voice of a foghorn, her hair piled high, her clothes only the best designer labels, had a fearsome reputation in the parliamentary chamber, a defender of the poor, an advocate for the rights of the minorities and better treatment for the immigrants flooding into the country.

  Kim had liked the woman without reservation, although the raucous bellowing voice was annoying. It was there during that time that Kim had met Wetherell.

  ‘And he didn’t say anything?’ Liz asked. ‘Fairweather’s not a common name. He must have put two and two together, come up with four.’

  ‘It was strange. He was all over the other women, but he kept his distance from me. Always addressed me as Miss Fairweather. One of the other women in the office, a few years older than me, had been swayed by the man’s eloquence. I’m sure they spent the night together.’

  ‘Hazel Waverley?’

  ‘He wasn’t interested in her; I’m sure with her it was strictly business, although she was gushing whenever he was around. Any other man, she’d give him a verbal ear bashing, the man cowering, desperate to get out of the room, but with Wetherell, all smiles and laughs.’

  ‘A charming man,’ Liz said, reminiscing.

  ‘And you and he?’

  ‘We were young and foolish and high on alcohol and other things.’

  ‘It’s what Clare said. You got around.’

  ‘You’ve always known this, not the details though. And not since I became pregnant with you, not once.’

  ‘But you were still young.’

  ‘I had a child; I had my professorship, my research. I had academia.’

  ‘It’s not enough. Everyone needs love.’

  ‘I had you. I had Clive.’<
br />
  ‘You still love him?’

  ‘Neither of us is interested in close personal relationships, not that kind. He wants to be alone, and so do I. You were the glue that kept us together. In his own way, he still loves me, I know that, but it wasn’t the enduring passion that you look for.

  ‘I made mistakes in my earlier life, became involved in causes that on reflection were silly and unrealistic. I never wanted you to fool around the way I had, stray men, names I couldn’t always remember.’

  ‘You’ve remembered Wetherell well enough.’

  ‘What with the man being in the public eye all the time, he’s hard to forget.’

  ‘Why am I here?’ Kim asked; another bottle of red uncorked.

  ‘Because I don’t remember all of the men that I might have slept with.’

  ‘Mother, don’t use such a benign word. Say it as it is, men you had sex with. Why so coy? We’ve accepted that you were a tart in your youth, a lot of women are, a lot of my generation. I’m not condemning you, nor is Clive.’

  ‘What if one of those men was Clive’s brother? How would I know? If he was a believer or he had infiltrated us, it could have been him.’

  ‘Infiltrate a group of drug-addled university students? Why would they do that?’

  ‘Des Wetherell may have taken the cause forward, committed acts of anarchy.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Never. I was comfortable with protesting, issuing manifestos denouncing capitalism and the aristocracy and so on, but a violent act, I couldn’t.’

  ‘The two names you gave to Clare?’

  ‘I had to give her something to deflect them away from Clive. Des was up to something, so was Monty Yatton, dear sweet Monty. He was gay back then, but he wouldn’t admit to it, kept trying to prove that he was all-man.’

  ‘Did he succeed?’ Kim asked. Her friends at school as she was growing up were always intrigued by the openness that mother and daughter enjoyed. It was to the young Kim that they would come for advice on matters of the heart, the first tentative intimate encounter with someone of the opposite sex. Kim was their agony aunt, a position she appreciated.

  ‘He succeeded. Hardly the most satisfying of experiences, but he managed.’

  ‘Des Wetherell had no such problem, I assume. I remember the other woman in Hazel Waverley’s office the next day, a smile from ear to ear. She waddled as well.’

  ‘That’d be Des,’ Liz said. Both women laughed hysterically, tears rolling down their cheeks. It was the first time that the mother had relaxed that night.

  ‘What if it had been Clive’s brother that you slept with? Does it matter if you can’t remember?’

  ‘Des was more strident than us, determined to have positive action rather than debating and waving a few banners. Monty was enamoured of Des and his manly ways, wanting to emulate him, sucking up to him all the time.’

  ‘You suspected that they committed a criminal act?’

  ‘Suspected, never proved. There was a polling station, a general election. We had our sights set on the politician who would be there at some stage. He was all for bringing back capital punishment: “No time for leniency. If these people can’t live within a civilised society, then they have no place in it”, he’d say, or words to that effect.’

  ‘You protested?’

  ‘We had the banners, but it was Des who said that it was off. We never went, and then there was an explosion. Luckily no one was around at the time, no one was hurt.’

  ‘And you suspect Wetherell?’

  ‘Never proven, and until recently I’ve never given it any more thought. But now, with Richard and the possibility that I may have slept with the man…’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why he’s dead,’ Kim said. She had drunk more than she should have, so had her mother.

  ‘But it does. Don’t you see it? Richard bragged to Clive about how he had seduced his wife. What if later on, when I’m with Clive, Richard realises who I am?’

  ‘But you never met Richard?’

  ‘No, but Richard could have been bragging about the women he had seduced, mentioned a protester by the name of Liz, smart, interested in history, an easy lay. Clive could have probed, found out who I was, and then…’

  ‘You think that Clive could have killed his brother, don’t you?’

  ‘I hope not, but it’s plausible. If the police knew what I had just told you, they could arrest him on suspicion.’

  ‘Clive would admit guilt if it were true, we both know that. Why didn’t he admit it at the time?

  ‘He would have regarded his duty to you and me as more important. He could have been nursing this guilt for all these years, fearful that the truth would be revealed. He’ll not allow your life to be destroyed by letting it be known that you are the daughter of a murderer, a man guilty of fratricide.’

  ***

  Monty Yatton, although he believed that he had handled himself well with the police, remained nervous.

  He thought back to Des Wetherell, to Liz Fairweather, to their left-wing group. It was a time when he had felt that he belonged, a time when others saw him in a better light. Now he was a university professor and content with life, but his sexual orientation confused him.

  For a brief period in his life, the confusion had not concerned him, and with Liz, he had forgotten. She had made him whole, and then she had rejected him for Des Wetherell, the man he admired and envied, the man he wanted to hate, but couldn’t.

  His recollection of that day at the polling station was vague. He had been there with Wetherell, observing from across the road, discussing the plan, agreeing who was going to be responsible for affirmative action, and then, the explosion, the panic in the street, the two of them hurrying away, trying not to run, unable not to. Even to this day, the memory of it was confused. He couldn’t remember planting the bomb; he wasn’t even sure if it would work, and afterwards, Wetherell stood there shouting at him, blaming him for what he had done.

  But it wasn’t him, he was sure of it. He had never wanted to hurt anyone; he only wanted to be Wetherell’s friend, and the man had chastised him, called him a mincing little faggot who could only get it up when he was drugged and then only with Liz. ‘She reckoned you were a lousy screw,’ Wetherell had said, half-laughing, half-angry.

  It was then in his small flat that Monty Yatton wished the man dead, himself dead, everyone and anyone who had ever laughed at him or ignored him or criticised. But mainly, it was Liz Fairweather that his anger was directed at.

  Suppressed anger and hatred welled in Monty Yatton as he sat in the living room of his small one-bedroom flat. In one hand he held a glass of whisky, in his mouth a cannabis joint. If he were taking note of the situation – not possible after the alcohol and several joints – he would have realised that the feelings he felt, transmuted from the initial euphoria to confusion and anxiety and paranoia, were a clear sign that it was time to stop. But Monty Yatton was beyond such comprehension, as he was most nights of the week. He coughed as he attempted to stand up. He fell back into his chair, barely able to focus, not sure where he was; the room swirled around him. He picked up the phone that was lying on the table beside his chair and made a phone call, the number entered into its memory earlier that day.

  ‘Wetherell,’ the voice answered at the other end.

  ‘It’s Monty Yatton, do you remember me?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Wetherell’s angry response. He had no time for or interest in a silly little man who belonged in the past.

  ‘You blew up that polling station, didn’t you?’ a slurred voice said.

  ‘You weaselly little man, what are you talking about, and where did you get my phone number from?’

  ‘Man of the people, always available. Isn’t that your catchphrase?’

  ‘Not to you, I’m not. What we did at university was a long time ago, long enough to have been forgotten.’

  ‘Attempted murder isn’t. You would have killed that man that day.’

&nbs
p; ‘No one was killed and what are you talking about? Still taking drugs to cover your inadequacy, are you?’

  ‘Medicinal,’ Yatton’s reply.

  ‘What do you want? Tell me now or go to hell.’

  ‘The police have been here, asking me about Richard Grantley. Do you know who he was?’

  ‘They’re coming to see me, but I won’t be high on drugs, scared out of my wits, and I never killed anyone, not even this Richard Grantley, whoever he is.’

  ‘Liz gave our names. She knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘About the polling station.’

  ‘She never did, not from me. Did you tell her? Are you the one causing trouble? Whatever Liz has done by telling the police, I will deal with her in time. You, Yatton, better find yourself a hole to climb into and hope that I never find you.’

  Wetherell slammed down the phone and made a call. ‘Nigel, a name for you. Monty Yatton, University of Dundee. He’s a lecturer there, ancient history.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Nigel Nicholson, Wetherell’s senior lawyer and confidante, asked.

  ‘He’s an effeminate little man from my university days. He just phoned, out of his mind on some drug or other. He’s raking the coals, not that he’s right, but I don’t need this now. Shut him up.’

  ‘Permanently?’

  ‘Either get him out of sight, at least until I’ve secured the Deputy Secretary General’s position with the TUC, or stop him talking. The police have been with Yatton, trying to find out who murdered a Richard Grantley.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘I’ve never met the man. Sure, I’ve met some rogues over the years, but the name means nothing to me. I’ve laid a few out flat, dragged some others through the courts for libelling me in their newspapers, but not murder, no percentage in that.’

  Chapter 16

  It was to be another long day, and both Tremayne and Clare intended to take advantage of the full English breakfast on the plates in front of them at the Premier Inn on Riverside Drive. Outside, the Firth of Tay where the River Tay, Scotland’s largest river in terms of flow, emptied into the North Sea.