Dead of Winter

Chapter 44

Sandford was making a brief appearance at Fletcher House to chase up some results; he had washed down the shelves of the spice cupboard at Blackdown Barn, collected the liquid and sent it away to be analysed. Now he had to find someone who liked cooking to tell him what it meant. His back was aching from unscrewing the entire kitchen. Halfway through standing up he had felt his back seize. He leant one hand on the top of a desk as he answered his phone.

‘Sir?’ It was Davidson.

‘Yes. . I’m back here, sir. There’s still a lot to do. . I appreciate that but I want to keep the team small; save any cross-contamination. We are digging up the garden. The apple trees will take some shifting. . No. . the cellar hasn’t yielded any positive results. We’re down to clay soil now.’ Sandford closed his phone and went over to Robbo who was back at his desk.

‘Oh my God, how come they let you out?’ Robbo laughed when he saw him.

‘Just come back to follow up some results and to get warm.’

Robbo rolled his chair down to the other end of the desk, picked up a collection of samples and handed them to him.

‘Here’s the result of the plastic sheeting: three companies produce that gauge, that width. They’re sending me the lists of customers.’

‘Any sign of Carmichael?’

‘None.’ Robbo sat back in his chair and looked hard at Sandford.

‘I expect he’ll turn up soon enough.’

‘Yeah, but in what way? We both know what he’s capable of.’

‘Sorry to interrupt.’ Ebony came in and handed Sandford a file. ‘I was told to bring you in my report on Rose Cottage.’

‘Thank you, Detective. Before you go. . do you like cooking?’ She shook her head. ‘What about your family? Your ethnic roots? Do you know how to cook some of the food from your culture?’

‘You mean Caribbean?’

‘Exactly.’

‘No. . I don’t know any of my Jamaican family.’

‘Okay. . shame. . everyone should know how to make one national dish,’ replied Sandford.

‘What’s yours?’ asked Ebony.

‘Welsh cakes.’

‘Ask Robbo — he cooks all the time. .’ She turned to Robbo.

‘Yes, ask me. What’s this about cooking?’

‘About spices to be exact,’ said Sandford. ‘From the shelves at Blackdown Barn. What would you make if I were to give you a mix of garam masala. . chilli, coriander-’

‘I’d make you a hot Indian curry, maybe a chilli chicken tikka masala?’

‘Wait, I haven’t finished the list: paprika, Mediterranean herbs, hickory essence, and pimento.’

‘Oooh, interesting. . I’d say you had a touch of the South African braai thing going on and definitely some colonial British in there. We can’t go a week without a curry and anywhere in the world we colonized is the same. But the sweetness, that’s the key to South African cooking: a strange mix of sweet, hot herbs and spice. . the thought of it is making me hungry.’

‘Making me starving,’ said Ebony as she left.

Sandford picked up his plastic samples and left. ‘Catch you lot later, back to the fridge.’

Robbo typed in the South African link. He watched HOLMES make the connections and come up with the results. He stirred sugar into his coffee and took a sip. He clapped his hands in front of his face in an attempt to wake himself up before picking up his coffee and walking into the ETO. Ebony was back to back with Carter. Jeanie sat opposite.

‘Justin de Lange. .’ Robbo pulled up a chair between Ebony and Carter. ‘Interpol have come up trumps. He trained as an anaesthetist but didn’t go on with it; we knew that — but one of the reasons is because he was accused of rape. It wasn’t the first time either. This time it was a friend of the family. Seems he’d had problems through boarding school. The school covered it up but mainly Mummy paid people off. She died while he was in med school; looks like he went travelling straight after.’

‘Why would Martingale want someone like that on his team?’ asked Carter.

‘Yeah. . and even more to the point, why would he allow him to marry his daughter?’ said Robbo. ‘The son he never had, maybe?’

‘Yeah,’ said Carter. ‘He must have had something Martingale was looking for.’

Jeanie shook her head. ‘He can’t have known.’

Ebony looked at her. ‘I think he must have, Jeanie. He would have made it his business to find out everything. Maybe he’s using the information somehow. Maybe it works to his advantage to keep a hold over de Lange?’

‘Could be,’ said Jeanie. ‘But where does that leave Nikki de Lange? Is their marriage a sham?’

‘Carter thought so, didn’t you?’ Ebony answered, looking across at Carter. He nodded.

‘Yeah. They look like they should be a perfect couple: good-looking, successful. Maybe they’re too perfect. The Lion King and the Snow Queen.’

Ebony nodded in agreement. ‘They seem to be the same types, both very aware of their looks, both aware of everything around them. If anything he is vainer than she is. He must have got that tan from a sunbed or a bottle. His lion mane hair is obviously his pride and joy. She seems more brittle, pasty-looking, she looks beautiful but she doesn’t look healthy. I think no couple could have two people competing to be the most perfect. I would agree with Carter: something’s not right. Not that I’m an expert on what a happy couple should look like.’

Carter glanced her way, as did Jeanie. Jeanie smiled encouragement. It was the first time anyone had heard her say anything even remotely connected with her private life.

‘Unless Nikki de Lange is a victim,’ said Jeanie. ‘She’s ruled by her father and her husband. . maybe.’

‘Maybe it was part of a deal with de Lange,’ said Robbo. ‘You run my companies and you’ll get a big slice of it in the end.’

‘What about her? What does she get?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Robbo. ‘She’s caught in the middle of it all, maybe. She was home-tutored by Martingale. There are no records about her exam results, her university achievements. There’s not a photo of her in any newspaper clipping. It’s like she’s barely been allowed to exist.’

‘No photos? Not even when she got married? The local press must have covered it?’ asked Jeanie.

‘Not even then. .’ answered Robbo. ‘More than that. . so far I haven’t been able to find any proof that they are married. . There is an entry in a midwifery hospital in Port Elizabeth for her birth. It ties in with what she said about being four years older than Chrissie Newton. Apart from that she seems to have lived her life in seclusion and maybe even isolation.’

‘Daddy’s girl,’ said Jeanie.

‘And now he’s paired her off with Daddy’s right-hand man,’ Carter replied.

‘We should try and find out more about her,’ said Jeanie. ‘Ask Harding. . see if she knows any more about it than we do,’ Jeanie winked. ‘She likes you. Ebb.’

Carter laughed. ‘Don’t tell Ebony that. She’ll ask for a transfer. We need to go round to Mr and Mrs de Lange and see how the happy couple co-habit.’

Robbo commandeered Carter’s desk as he logged into his own PC remotely.

‘Let me also show you this. You asked me to dig up any dirt I could find on Martingale. Well maybe this is not directly about him but it’s about one of the companies on the list you gave me. It’s a company called Remed Ltd. They are a medical research company. Bear with me.’ Robbo brought up several photos on the screen. He clicked on the first one.

‘This is Mr Hans Grun. And this is one of the last photos of him alive. Here he is with his devoted American wife called Patsy.’

‘He looks healthy enough,’ said Carter as he studied the photo of the silver-haired, fit-looking man in his early fifties.

‘Hans Grun died in Soho under suspicious circumstances on one of his many visits to London on business. That was in nineteen eighty-four. They think Hans was murdered when a robbery went wrong. In his will, Hans’ wife Patsy discovered that he’d left his body to science and she donated it to Remed Ltd. Sweet — you think. Very commendable that your dying wish is to donate your body to medical science? What would you expect to happen to it?’

‘Used for research, I suppose?’ answered Carter.

‘Exactly. You’re going to think the worst that can happen is some spotty-faced med school kid messes with it. . but hey, it’s in the name of science. But then Patsy decided to track down what happened to his body and here’s the fun bit. Patsy discovered that her husband’s bones had been melted down to make dental products for cosmetic dentistry and had also been made into a gel for plumping women’s lips. Patsy wasn’t happy and she sued Remed Ltd.’

‘Interesting,’ said Carter.

‘They gave her some compensation; it wasn’t illegal just a bit unethical.’

‘When I looked into the shareholders in Remed Ltd I found a familiar name. Digger Cain has been there from the very beginning. He was certainly there when Hans got melted.’

‘So Martingale must know Digger? He must have lied to us.’

‘Not necessarily; it’s Justin de Lange who set the company up and who has been running it all this time.’