Buried Secrets

by Ted Tayler

  “Alan never mentioned it, why?” asked Maddy.

  “The detectives on the original investigation found no one who might have wanted to murder your partner,” said Gus. “They questioned his parents, his workmates, and your neighbours. Nobody had an unkind word to say, yet someone followed Alan often enough to become familiar with the routes he took on his weekly runs.”

  “The police asked which routes he took,” said Maddy, “and whether I ever noticed anyone outside in the lane when Alan left home. I didn’t see a thing. It was a terrible shock to discover that someone wanted him dead. I could never understand it.”

  “Where was Alan living when you met?” asked Lydia.

  “In Corsham,” said Maddy. “When he left the Navy, Alan came home and moved back in with his parents, Bob and Elizabeth.”

  “If Alan had known Wayne Phillips for several months before you met it suggests that Alan was cycling almost as soon as he settled in,” said Lydia. “What about the weekly runs? Were they something he started after you moved in together, or was the Wednesday and Saturday exercise a pattern he’d already established?”

  “Alan told me he needed to maintain the high level of fitness he’d had while in the Navy. There wasn’t a particular goal in sight. It was purely for his well-being.”

  “How did you feel about that?” asked Gus.

  “If it made him happy, it was fine by me,” said Maddy. “Why does it matter if he had already established a routine before we met, anyway?”

  “We’ll ask his parents this afternoon,” said Gus, “but if Alan ran through several parts of Corsham every Wednesday evening, then that provides occasions where he could come into contact with a person of interest. The murderer didn’t appear out of thin air. They knew Alan’s habits well enough to know where he would be at a specific time. They weren’t waiting for him next to that remote field on Ham Lane by chance. They planned it to the minute.”

  “That’s horrible,” said Maddy.

  “I agree,” said Gus. “So, let’s return to the matter of your lack of a relationship in the three years before you met Alan Duncan. This time, I want the truth. If there was someone, you remember their name and why you preferred not to disclose their details earlier. If there was no one in your life throughout that period, then the answer lies in Leeds or the village you lived in before moving here. Which is it?”

  “I left home because of a difficult relationship,” said Maddy. “I started seeing a boy at school when I was fifteen. Kyle was seventeen and had left school that summer. There weren’t many jobs around even then, and he was on the dole. My parents wanted me to concentrate on my studies, I was good enough to go to university according to my teachers, but Kyle had nothing to occupy his time. I thought I loved him, so I cut school to be with him. My exams the following summer were a disaster, and I left school with only a handful of average grades. I found work, but only for peanuts with start-up firms that didn’t survive because of the recession. I argued with my parents because of how things had turned out. I argued with Kyle because he wasn’t making any effort to find a job. We broke up after eighteen months. That’s when it started. He wouldn’t accept it was over. Kyle tormented me for the next two months. He’d wait for me outside work. I had to change my phone number so he couldn’t text me a hundred times a day. I stopped going out in the evenings. In the end, I gave in and let him back into my life. He was working on a building site then and could afford to run an old car. We were okay for a while, and then he got fired for persistent timekeeping problems. I got the blame, and that was the first time Kyle hit me.”

  “Did you end it after that,” said Lydia.

  “I tried,” said Maddy, “but he apologised and bought me flowers. My parents were getting fed up with me making excuses for him. They saw the bruises when he’d lashed out again. My father and my brother wanted Kyle out of my life for good. My brother got arrested for assault after Kyle spent the night in the hospital. The police never listened to Darren’s reasons for attacking Kyle. They had seen no proof I’d been in an abusive relationship. I lived at home, and although my brother accused Kyle of being responsible for my injuries, Kyle denied everything. I was too scared to report him myself. He knew that. My third job ended soon after Darren’s case went to court, and then I was out of work, sat at home all day. I couldn’t have a social life. Kyle knew better than to come near my home because of my family, but I knew I couldn’t escape him as long as I remained in the village. That’s why I came here.”

  “We need Kyle’s full name and address, Maddy,” said Gus.

  “Kyle wouldn’t have killed Alan,” she replied.

  “What makes you so certain?” asked Lydia.

  “Kyle was a bully,” said Maddy. “But he would never be smart enough to find me.”

  “Either you’re naïve,” said Gus, “or you did something to help you stay in hiding. What was it?”

  “It will have to come out now,” said Maddy. “I was never Maddy Mills in Yorkshire. I changed my name by deed poll once I reached Chippenham. Kyle was my boyfriend, and Darren really is my brother’s name. If Kyle wanted me back after that length of time and devised an elaborate plan to kill Alan, surely Chris was in danger once I started seeing him? We’ve been happily married for seven years. Don’t you think Kyle would have acted before now?”

  “We still need to eliminate him from our enquiries,” said Gus. “It would have been better if you had mentioned this to DI Banks and his colleagues ten years ago. Did it never occur to you that Kyle could have been the one person who might have wanted Alan dead?”

  “I’ve tried to put that part of my life behind me,” said Maddy. “The only contact I have with my family is those Christmas cards. I use my former name and post them from Swindon, or Bristol when I’m doing my Christmas shopping. They don’t have my address. All they need to know is that I’m alive and well.”

  “You referred to Alan’s parents as Bob and Elizabeth,” said Gus. “Have you kept in contact since their son’s murder?”

  Madeleine Telfer shook her head.

  “After the funeral, I found it difficult to carry on visiting them. I needed time to grieve alone. It affected his parents so much, especially Alan’s mother, that I didn’t think I would ever get over things if I spent too much time around them. I attempted to visit on the first anniversary of his death and spoke to Bob. He looked as if he’d aged ten years in twelve months. Elizabeth was still in bed. She refused to get up, even though Bob told her I was there. I think she blamed me for Alan’s death.”

  “Why would she think that?” asked Lydia.

  “I don’t know. You would have to ask,” said Maddy.

  “When did you stop work?” asked Gus.

  “A couple of months before I had Oliver. He’s six, and Emily is four and a half. I plan to go back part-time when the children are older.”

  “Were you still at Bumper’s Farm?” asked Lydia.

  “Yes, I worked at the same firm throughout,” said Maddy. “I started there in ’93 and left on maternity leave in 2012.”

  “When did you meet Chris Telfer?” asked Gus.

  “I didn’t rely on Wayne and Anna this time,” said Maddy. “I was in the deli aisle in Morrison’s one Saturday morning, and he stopped to chat.”

  “Were you still living in Biddestone?” asked Lydia.

  “No, I moved here, to this housing estate, six months after Alan died.”

  “Too many memories?” asked Gus.

  “Exactly,” sighed Maddy.

  “When the police found Alan’s cash, were you shocked by the amount?” asked Gus.

  “It was one shock after another,” said Maddy. “I knew something was wrong when he didn’t get home by eight. When the police were outside the house after I returned from searching for him, I feared the worst. Even then, I thought it would be a heart attack, or a hit-and-run, never a murder. The next four or five days are still a blur. When the police returned to search the house, I just couldn’t
understand what they hoped to find. That DI Banks you mentioned, he showed me one of Alan’s trainer boxes and asked if I knew what was inside. I said a pair of white trainers, size ten, with a red flash. He opened the box, and I nearly died. I’d never seen that much cash.”

  “What did DI Banks ask you?” asked Gus.

  “He asked me why my partner withdrew that much money and closed his current and savings accounts on Tuesday afternoon. I said I did not know. Alan hadn’t said a word to me. Banks asked me the same questions as the uniformed officers had on Wednesday night. Did we argue? Were we in financial difficulties? I said no then, and I said the same thing to Banks. The other detective asked whether someone might have been blackmailing Alan. How much did I know of his past?”

  “A fair question,” said Gus. “You met at a party and moved in together after four months. You knew little or nothing of the first thirty years of his life.”

  “That’s not fair,” said Maddy. “We visited his parents often enough for me to learn about Alan from a baby to a teenager. They had loads of photos of Alan in his uniform, and from places that he’d visited on various trips.”

  “Did he discuss his trips?” asked Lydia.

  “He couldn’t,” said Maddy, “they were hush-hush.”

  “We’ll ask Bob and Elizabeth later, perhaps they knew what ships he served on,” said Gus. “One last question for today, Mrs Telfer. Was there anyone that you came into contact with after you arrived here in Chippenham that could have had a reason to harm Alan Duncan?”

  “No way,” said Maddy. “Everything I did when I reached here kept me safe. No relationships meant no chance of getting hurt. I’d had more than enough trouble over the previous three years. When I met Alan, I let myself believe I could love someone again. We were happy, and then after four years, someone tore him away from me. I was back where I started.”

  “You found love again though, Maddy,” said Lydia, pointing to a family photo of her with Chris and the two kids.

  Maddy gave a wry smile.

  “Chris adores the children and me. I gave him what he always wanted. He gave me financial security. Love didn’t come into it.”

  “If you could supply my colleague with those details for Kyle, Mrs Telfer,” said Gus. “We may need to speak with you again, but for now, thank you for your time.”

  Gus left Lydia in the lounge with Maddy Telfer and returned to the car. He checked his watch. They had time to return to the office for a debrief before heading to Corsham. His initial feeling had proved correct. This case had more twists than a corkscrew, and no doubt there were several more surprise revelations to come before they discovered the whole truth.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lydia found Gus stood on the pavement by his car.

  “What do you reckon these homes fetch?” he asked.

  “Four hundred thousand, minimum,” said Lydia, “were you thinking of up sizing?”

  “Heavens, no,” said Gus. “Did you get the gentleman’s details?”

  Lydia waited until they were inside the Focus before speaking. A nosy neighbour was walking past with a puppy. Lydia thought she had bigger purses.

  “Kyle Ellison, formerly from Marsden, West Yorkshire. The village is a forty-five-minute drive from Leeds and has around three-and-a-half-thousand inhabitants. The current whereabouts of the forty-five-year-old Kyle are thankfully a mystery to Mrs Telfer.”

  “Check whether Ellison has a record when we get back to the office,” said Gus. “Get Blessing to search for him on social media. I’m not happy that Mrs Telfer has told us the whole truth yet. Did she offer any additional names and addresses?”

  “No, guv,” said Lydia. “I guessed you left me alone with Maddy, hoping she might open up to me about her family. I pressed her for her birth name, but nothing doing. She wanted the past to stay in the past. What do you suggest?”

  “We find Ellison, get proof of his whereabouts in the weeks leading up to the murder, and if he’s clean, then we forget him. Do we need to contact her family?”

  “Maddy sends Christmas cards with no return address,” said Lydia. “That’s sad, isn’t it?”

  “Her excuse was that it stops them worrying,” said Gus. “They know she’s alive and well. I assume her parents are still alive. If not, her brother can’t write back to tell Maddy to save the stamp. Oh, I don’t know, Maddy, or whoever she is, didn’t kill Alan Duncan. Kyle Ellison may have had a motive, but how could he hope to locate the victim? As for the rest of her West Yorkshire family, there might have been the traditional teenage squabbles, but pursuing her half the length of the country to murder her partner seems unlikely.”

  Gus parked the Focus outside the Old Police station, and he and Lydia travelled up in the lift.

  “What did you make of Maddy’s last comment, guv?” asked Lydia.

  “That she married for convenience rather than love? She wouldn’t be the first, Lydia.”

  “That’s cynical, guv,” she replied.

  “Perhaps, but there’s more to come out yet. Ever since adopting the Maddy Mills persona, that woman has played a role. I’m not sure she can distinguish fact from fiction after twenty-five years.”

  “You’ve got me there, guv. What did I miss?”

  The lift doors opened.

  “Let’s tell the others what we learned,” said Gus. “Get those details checked out, and update our copies of the digital files.”

  Twenty minutes later, Blessing Umeh was digging on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

  Luke Sherman was asking the Hub if they had any information on Kyle Ellison.

  Neil Davis searched census records for Marsden, West Yorkshire, for a family of two adults, with two children, where the eldest boy was called Darren. Neil knew he could search for some time. Somebody had to have the short straw.

  “Let me in to the secret then, guv,” said Lydia.

  “What was your first impression of Madeleine Telfer?” said Gus.

  “A beautiful, smartly dressed, confident woman who looked younger than her forty-three years, guv.”

  “When she was fifteen, her teachers said she could progress to university,” said Gus.

  “Yes, then the good-looking-but-thick-boyfriend, Kyle, put paid to that,” said Lydia.

  “Where did she work after she left school?” asked Gus.

  “Three failed businesses, working for peanuts,” said Lydia.

  “No, she worked for three start-up firms that didn’t make it. Maybe the right product at the wrong time. I wonder where those entrepreneurs are today? I wouldn’t mind betting that at least one of them has retired with a shed load of money. Why did they give the young school leaver a job? Because they recognised potential, someone with a sharp mind. Maddy didn’t say she did menial work, did she? I’d like to know more because when she arrived in Chippenham, part of her invisibility cloak involved wasting her talents at a call centre. A company she stayed with for nineteen years where she became an anonymous voice at the end of the line.”

  “What the heck does she have to hide, guv?” said Alex.

  “And what does it have to do with Alan Duncan’s death?” asked Luke.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Gus. “I’m just starting this jigsaw. We haven’t got half the pieces on the board yet. Perhaps we’ll get more this afternoon.”

  An hour later, Gus was ready to drive to Corsham.

  “Are you nearly ready, Blessing?” he asked.

  “Give me two minutes, guv,” she replied. “I’ll explain to Lydia what I’ve done so far. Ten minutes, and Lydia should have a good idea of Kyle Ellison’s digital footprint.”

  Blessing joined Gus in the lift, and they returned to the ground floor.

  “The story so far, Blessing,” said Gus.

  “Ellison’s Twitter posts were mostly about football, rugby league and the EDL, guv,” said Blessing.

  “I’m sorry you had to read that garbage, Blessing,” said Gus.

  “Kyle’s not an active member of t
he extremist organisation, guv. The language isn’t great, but he’s careful not to post or retweet anything controversial. There’s no sign they have removed him from the site at any time. I assess that he’s an extremely low-volume user with less than thirty followers. Kyle follows several high-profile sports stars and female celebrities and goes weeks with no activity. His profile picture is the Leeds United badge. Everything else he posts is text only, no photographs.”

  “Never mind, Blessing. Perhaps he’s more active on Facebook.”

  “It makes life easier for us when people live their life in a goldfish bowl,” said Blessing.

  “Odd isn’t it?” said Gus. “If we encounter someone who doesn’t have active accounts on these sites, we wonder what they’ve got to hide. Twenty years ago, it was possible to carry out clandestine affairs, commit bigamy, and get up to all sorts of antisocial activities with no one being any the wiser. Or so they tell me.”

  “That’s a good point, guv,” said Blessing.

  Gus drove them to Corsham. Bob and Elizabeth Duncan lived in a modest three-bedroomed semi-detached house on a small estate off Station Road. Gus thought the houses had stood there since the early 60s.

  “What’s my role this afternoon, guv?” asked Blessing as they walked to the front door.

  “Listen to what they say, make a note of what they don’t,” said Gus.

  The doorbell uttered a single harsh ring.

  Bob Duncan answered the door and invited them inside. Gus understood what Madeleine Telfer meant. Bob Duncan was barely nine years older than he was, yet he could pass for an eighty-year-old. Bert Penman had more energy at eighty-five.

  Alan’s father didn’t ask who they were or want to look at identification. He led them into a tired-looking front room, crying out for a lick of paint. The grey net curtains in the window had once been white, and even in high summer, the room felt dark and gloomy.

  “Elizabeth’s in the kitchen,” said Bob. “She thought you’d want a cuppa.”

  “Give Mrs Duncan a hand, Blessing,” said Gus. “You know my poison.”