Frozen Grave

Chapter 36

Willis and Carter arrived mid-afternoon and parked in the police-station car park at Middlemoor Regional Headquarters on the outskirts of Exeter.

A tall, slim, dark-haired man in jeans and a blue-and-black-check shirt called to them as they were on the way into the station.

‘Hello, Dan.’

‘Scott – how’s things? Good to see you.’ They gave one another a man-hug.

Carter turned back to introduce Willis.

‘This is my partner – DC Ebony Willis.’

‘Nice to meet you.’ Scott shook her hand. ‘Did you get your passport stamped coming this far south?’ he said, smiling at her.

‘I did think about it.’

‘How’s Cabrina, Dan?’

‘Good, thanks, mate.’

‘What happened to your stag do, Dan? Croatia, Barcelona? Which is it to be – vodka shots or tequila?

‘Not there yet, mate. We had a kid first. Have to wait for the right time.’

Scott looked at Willis and gave a nod Carter’s way. ‘Is he still planning what he’s going to wear?’ She laughed.

Carter looked at Willis. It was nice to hear her laugh again.

‘Yeah – don’t think so, mate, no time.’ Carter grinned. ‘Too busy with proper crime up in the big city; it’s not all about who stole all the cabbages.’

Scott laughed and rolled his eyes.

‘That’s right, I forgot, it’s a bad world north of Brizztol.’ He laughed. Carter winked at Willis. ‘We can talk in the car.’ He led them over to the blue estate. ‘I’ll take you to see Gillian Forth’s body first.’

‘What kind of a woman was she? Any enemies?’ asked Willis as they drove out of the car park.

‘She was thirty-eight,’ Tucker answered. ‘She worked in the sales department of a car-parts firm. She’d lived in Exeter all her life. She was a divorcee but her husband kept in touch – no animosity there. She never had kids. She was quite highly strung. If pushed she could fly off the handle. But nice most of the time – her workmates liked her. She was kind and fun to be with, they said.’

‘Boyfriend?’ asked Willis.

‘Her workmates said they thought there might be, but they weren’t absolutely sure. There are only two other women working at the company, the rest are blokes. Not sure how much she would have told them. We’ve spoken to friends outside her work and they say they’ve never met him but have heard about a man who visits once a fortnight.’

Carter flashed Willis a look.

‘Interesting.’

‘She didn’t elaborate though.’

‘Did they get a name for him?’

‘John. No surname.’

Carter looked at Willis expectantly. She didn’t look his way; she was staring at Scott’s profile. She didn’t seem to have heard what he just said.

‘This man JJ Ellerman you’re looking into – what’s the connection? Could he be the boyfriend, John? Is that what you’re thinking?’

‘It’s possible,’ Carter told him. Willis took the letter from her bag and handed it to Carter.

‘We got this about him. Two of the women from this list are now dead. Gillian Forth’s name is on it and so is Olivia Grantham’s, the lawyer.’

‘This is a helluva list,’ Tucker said as Carter showed him the three pages of names. ‘Who are all these women?’

‘These are his conquests,’ answered Willis. ‘He travels all over the country, trying to flog luxury yachts and he meets women from dating sites.’

‘Yeah… he has a novel way of finding a bed for the night,’ said Carter. ‘A woman in every town. Whilst he’s there, we also think he cons them out of money. He got Olivia Grantham to invest ten grand. That was made by a bank transfer to his Spanish Hacienda company – a renovations company based in Spain but seeming to do no advertising.’

‘She didn’t die the same way as Gillian, did she?’

‘No, she was murdered by a third party, or several of them. She was lured into a building thinking that she was meeting a man for sex. Instead, she was set up to be raped and beaten by a gang of homeless drunks or gang members, take your pick – who were given large amounts of drugs and drink to get them in the party mood.’

Scott shook his head. ‘You can’t get Ellerman for her murder then.’

‘Could be conspiracy to murder – he could have paid to have it done. We’re going to try and get him for fraud at least – we don’t know if he missold the investments to these women. We’re still trying to find some paperwork but we’re hopeful – Olivia Grantham was a lawyer, she must have written something down. The other women need to press charges. We’re contacting all the women on the list.’

‘What were Gillian Forth’s finances like?’ asked Willis.

‘She didn’t earn a lot of money; friends say she was careful. She had a small mortgage – fifteen grand, thereabouts. Up to six months ago she had twenty grand savings in the bank, then she withdrew the lot. Could be your man Ellerman but equally…’

‘House improvements?’ Carter asked. ‘Did she do the attic conversion with it?’

Tucker shook his head. ‘My first thought too but no… that was done two years ago. She withdrew it all in cash – twenty thousand – and it didn’t turn up again. She may have accounts elsewhere that we haven’t found yet.’

‘What about this boyfriend of hers?’ asked Carter. ‘Neighbours never saw him?’

‘No. He must have been an infrequent visitor if he existed at all. We’ll have to wait for the phone records.’

‘Meanwhile, we can ask Ellerman if he knew her,’ said Carter. ‘We can ask to see his phone records, save time. We’ll see if that twenty thousand turns up in Ellerman’s bank statements.’

‘He’s not likely to give us permission, guv.’

‘Yeah, I know, but we’ll try,’ said Carter, then turned to Tucker. ‘Did you ask her work if they’d ever heard of Ellerman?’

‘I did,’ answered Tucker. ‘They said he was down as one of their clients. He’s used them for parts for his cars.’

They drove to the mortuary and Tucker introduced them to the technician in charge. He wheeled out the body and began removing it from the bag.

‘This is Gillian Forth.’

The charred remains were shrunken into a boxer’s pose: knees up, arms ready to punch.

‘It’s okay.’ Carter held up his hand. ‘I don’t think we need to get the body out – we can see it fine, thanks.’

‘Okay, call me when you’re done.’

‘Thanks.’ Tucker had the post-mortem report in his hands.

Willis peeled back the bag away from the zip.

‘If there’s one thing that I hate it’s barbecued corpse,’ said Carter, standing back.

‘Yeah, nasty,’ agreed Tucker. He opened the post-mortem report on the trolley and rested it on the end of the body bag. There was also a diagram of the house and where she was found.

Willis was taking a closer look at the body.

‘Her skin is blistered where her clothes were,’ she said, matching up the page of the report to the body. ‘Which means she had begun to try and defend herself against the burning.’

‘She didn’t die from smoke inhalation then?’ asked Carter.

‘She had no chance in hell of getting out,’ said Tucker. ‘She was found here, beneath the window.’ He indicated the spot on the diagram of Gillian Forth’s bedroom. ‘There was one way up to her bedroom in the attic and it was completely impassable as soon as the fire started.’

‘They’re saying now that it didn’t have the necessary planning permission. Is that right?’ asked Carter. He was holding the plan of the house in his hand.

‘Yes. It’s true.’

‘What was found in the room with her?’ asked Carter.

‘Usual bedroom furniture: bed, chest of drawers, mirror on the wall, photo… of what? We don’t know. There was also a tablet computer, glass from more than one drinking glass and her phone.’

‘It was too early for her to be in bed,’ said Willis. ‘Was there any evidence that someone else was there, Scott?’

‘In the 999 call she made, she said there was no one else in the house with her. Are we done here?’ asked Tucker. Willis nodded. Tucker called the technician in.

‘Do we know how it started? asked Carter as they walked back to Tucker’s car.

‘It started at the front door. We haven’t found out what was used yet – some kind of inflammable liquid was poured through the letterbox.’

‘Can we go and see Gillian Forth’s house now? And it would be good to talk to anyone we can about her boyfriend,’ said Carter.

‘No problem. It’s not far.’ Tucker started the car. ‘Where are you two staying tonight?’ Tucker looked from one to the other; his eyes settled on Willis. Willis shrugged. ‘Let me take you out and show you some of the sights of Exeter. You can stay in the accommodation at Headquarters.’

Carter grinned. ‘Woo-hoo. Not sure if we can take the excitement, hey, Eb? He turned round to wink at her. Carter could swear she was blushing.

They drove to the cordon surrounding Gillian’s house and parked up.

‘That’s a nasty sight,’ said Carter as they got out of the car; the house had a blackened front to it. The windows were intact on the ground floor. The skylight and part of the roof was burnt out, a gaping black wound in the roof’s structure. ‘You have to seriously hate someone to want them to die like that.’

‘Yeah – the intention to kill was there from the start.’

‘This road is on the way out of the city, isn’t it? Does it get much traffic coming through?’ asked Willis.

‘Only during work hours. It’s not a short cut. Most people go on the bypass. It’s quiet in the evenings. There’s no trouble with parking on this street.’

‘Any recent reports of trouble that might lead up to this kind of thing? Anti-social behaviour? When was the last arson attack you had in the city?’

‘Last summer we had a school set on fire,’ replied Tucker. ‘We have a couple of kids for that. We’ve looked into her company – no court cases pending, no customer complaints, mainly praise for the company.’

‘So, this is personal then,’ said Carter as they stood outside the front of the house. They could see the white of the SOCO forensic team moving past a window upstairs. The blackened stairwell was in front of them as they looked through the open door.

‘Can we talk to the neighbours again?’ asked Carter.

‘Be my guest.’

They knocked on the door to the right of Gillian’s house. It was answered by a man in his late seventies.

‘Hello, Mr Tiller, it’s Detective Sergeant Tucker again. Sorry to bother you. These are two detectives from London who are helping to investigate what happened next door.’

‘Terrible. Terrible shame.’

‘Did you know Gillian well, Mr Tiller?’ asked Carter.

‘Well enough. I’ve only been here a couple of years. If she saw me then we would stop to speak. She was a nice woman. Kept herself to herself.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Terrible shame.’

‘Did you ever see anyone visiting Gillian, Mr Tiller?’ asked Willis.

‘Like friends, you mean?’

‘Anyone really. What about in the last week?’

‘I don’t see much at all. The weather’s been so bad I haven’t ventured far.’

‘Do you have a car?’ asked Willis.

‘No, dear – not any more.’

‘Do you know the people who have cars on the street?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. When I go down the Spar shop at the end of the road I see the same cars. One of them belonged to Gillian; that’s the blue one over there.’ He pointed to a Polo.

‘Do you know anyone else’s?’

‘That white one down there, with the dog sticker on the window, that belongs to a man and his friend, they live at number 85, that’s three doors the other way. Then there’s the lady in 89 – she has a green hatchback, three-door.’

‘You have a good eye for cars, Mr Tiller.’ Tucker picked up the thread of the conversation.

‘Is there any car you see sometimes and don’t know who it belongs to?’ asked Willis.

Tiller thought about the question and nodded.

‘Yeah. Someone further down the street has a visitor sometimes. He drives a very fancy car. Beautiful-looking machine. Aston Martin.’

‘Have you seen the person driving it?’ she asked.

‘Once I saw a man getting in it and driving off.’

‘Would you recognize him again, Mr Tiller?’ asked Carter.

He shook his head. ‘I only saw the back of him as he got in the car.’

‘Did you see which house he came from?’ Carter stood back to look up and down the street.

‘He had his back to me so he must have come from this end of the street. I’m sorry, I can’t remember more than that. I wish I could help.’

‘Okay, thanks – you have been a help.’ Tucker smiled. Tiller turned back towards his front door.

‘What are you thinking?’ asked Carter as Tiller went back inside.

‘Just that there’s no residents’ parking here. Someone might park here to go to work or commute,’ said Tucker.

‘But are you too far away from town to think that someone would park here for the station?’ asked Willis.

‘Yes, I think so. There’s free parking nearer than this. I think anyone who parks here is visiting someone on the street. I’ll double-check the statements from neighbours when we get back. Mr Tiller was pretty sure on the make of car.’

‘There are only so many registered Aston Martin owners in the UK,’ said Carter.

Tucker nodded. ‘We’ll get searching.’

In the evening, Carter went to the men’s room in the pub in the centre of town – the Fat Pig was warm and cosy and served great food. They were waiting for their food to arrive. Willis fiddled with her cutlery – she was starving and trying not to show it.

‘You worked with Dan long?’ Tucker asked, whilst drinking a bottle of real ale.

‘Just over a year.’

‘He’s a great bloke. You’re lucky – there’s a lot you can learn from him. Great detective.’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘I was made up when I heard he’d got promoted. It was too long coming.’

‘I know. He definitely deserved it.’

‘And some. Took him long enough.’

‘Yes. How do you know one another?’

Tucker took a few seconds as he waited for the waiter to finish setting down the condiments.

‘I used to work in the Met.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. We worked together. I went undercover on a job, a paedophile operation. It was messy. Kids traded for favours in the drug world. Kids taken out of children’s homes just to entertain dignitaries. We uncovered someone really high up. I was told to lose files, to shut up. I was told I didn’t see what I know I did. I was told to make a false statement. Ultimately, I was told to resign or face dismissal. I went to Dan. He was my superior. He was my sergeant. Dan took it as far as it could go and he took me off undercover. I decided to resign but Dan said we should fight it. We did and it was a five-year battle; in the end, I took what was offered to me – a job with no hope of promotion. I came back here to my roots and have worked here ever since.’

‘Any regrets?’ Willis asked as she looked at his face. He had the look of an angry man, disappointed in himself.

‘Yes.’ He gave a half-smile. ‘A few. I wish I’d taken it further – it never felt like justice. I never cleared my name.’

‘But if you’d been dismissed you would have messed up any career you tried to have after the force.’

‘Yes, and I love my job. I just wish I’d played ball.’

‘You’re not serious? You wish you’d falsified information? You acted really honourably.’

‘Yeah – and where did it get me? Perhaps I could have done so much more if I’d stayed in.’

‘Are the men still serving who you were on the team with?’

‘Oh, yes. Those are the fuckers I said were as guilty as shit… sorry…’

‘Don’t be.’

Carter returned. The food arrived at the same time.

‘Was thinking…’ said Carter. ‘Could Ellerman really be that clever?’