Buried

Chapter 6

Jack was first in the squad room the next day. Not because he was being keen; he just hadn’t slept well after the dead-end phone call with his Aunt Fran. He was frustrated by her apparent indifference to his request for help, and it had made him suspect she might have something to hide. For the first time in a long time, he’d had a ‘copper’s hunch’, and now he was more determined than ever to find out more about Jimmy Nunn. But he’d have to be careful: if Ridley thought he was slacking, he wouldn’t hesitate to send him back to Devon.

By the time Ridley and the others walked in, the evidence board displayed photos of all the women from The Grange along with notes to date.

‘Dolly Rawlins...’ Jack started as they all settled to their desks. ‘Murdered in 1995 by Ester Freeman. Freeman was released in 2017 and now lives on the Isle of Wight with a guy called Geoffrey Porter-Lewis, a retired solicitor. No record. Kathleen O’Reilly died from alcoholism and Gloria Radford died in a car crash, along with her husband, Eddie. Connie Stephens had a B & B in Taunton, but I’m not sure that she has any more. HMRC has got an old address for her, as has the Licensing Authority, Building Inspectors, local fire safety assessors and so on. I’ll keep looking. Nothing on Julia Lawson and Angela Dunn as yet.’

Ridley looked at Jack, clearly hoping he had more to say — and in that split second, Jack went from being pleased with himself to being deeply disappointed. Ridley could do that with a single look — like a parent who is used to being let down.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘tomorrow I want you in the Isle of Wight...’ He paused. ‘Seeing as Freeman’s the only lead you’ve got.’

Jack winced, sat down and the floor was handed to Anik.

‘Did you know, sir, that we don’t actually know where around five hundred of our community-based sex offenders are?’ Anik sounded like he was about to give a lecture on police shortcomings. ‘They’re meant to stay at the halfway houses we put them in and... well, they don’t.’

‘We’ll tackle that disgraceful statistic another day, Anik. For now, let’s hear what we do know rather than what we don’t.’

‘Yes, sir. I’m working through a list of forty-five sex offenders from the Aylesbury area and—’

‘What do you mean by “I’m working through”?’ Ridley asked. Anik clearly didn’t understand the question. ‘Get on to the Vulnerable Persons’ Unit and ask for a couple of PCs to do the donkey work for you. You take what they report and collate it into a document that we can use.’

Anik grinned from ear to ear at the thought of ‘commanding’ a team of PCs.

‘I’ll do that, sir. Thank you. And I found an arrest report for a Daniel Green. He’s a vagrant who’s been picked up a couple of times for squatting in Rose Cottage. He used to nick tea lights from the village church, food from the Co-op and then break into the cottage for a kip. Last time he was picked up, he had a load of printed kiddie porn images from the internet, so he could be the “pervert” we’re looking for. He did two and a half months for that. The local bobbies know him by sight — they’re keeping their eyes open. If they don’t find him, he could be “Shirley”.’

‘ “Sheila”,’ Jack corrected, childishly hoping to make Anik look as stupid as he felt.

Anik took no notice and added Daniel Green’s mugshot to the evidence board. Laura then picked up the reins.

‘The total amount of cash being transported in the train back in ’95 has been confirmed as £36.7 million; but a number of sacks were left behind during the robbery. It was all in used, untraceable notes. So we’ve stopped trying to find any serial numbers, seeing as they won’t help us link any of the burnt cash to the robbery anyway. But it’s got to be from that, hasn’t it? I mean, if it was legitimate, who wouldn’t at least try to change one point eight million in old money at a bank? No way you’d just burn it...’

Jack concluded Laura’s thought: ‘Unless you had another twenty-five million stashed away in legal tender somewhere else.’

‘Exactly.’ Jack and Laura were now talking as one person. ‘One point eight million becomes pocket money when you look at the bigger picture. This haul has to be from the train robbery.’

Ridley kept the brainstorming going. ‘The other thing we now know is that the accelerant used was petrol. And it has to have been siphoned from a vehicle driven there, as there were no vehicles at the cottage. Laura — track down all the CCTV you can. There won’t be much, but I want you to identify all cars using that top road. Most cars will belong to residents from the estate, but that doesn’t automatically rule them out. Check them all, please.’ Laura nodded her understanding. ‘The rest of you, use the pathology report that Jack’s about to bring you, to find “Sheila” in missing persons. Any questions? Jack... with me.’

And, with that, Ridley was gone.

As Ridley and Jack walked the corridor towards Foxy’s lab, Jack waited for the bollocking. And here it came.

‘How come you only managed to trace three dead women, and the one living woman who was piss-easy to find because her probation officer’s name was in the files sent across by DI Prescott?’ This was rhetorical, so Ridley left no space for Jack to answer. ‘New DCs like Anik should look up to you, Jack, but he doesn’t. You’re just a bloke he works with.’

‘I’ll talk to Maggie about the sergeant’s post—’

‘Don’t bother unless you really want it,’ Ridley ended as he pushed his way through the heavy rubber doors into Will’s stark, white, sterile labs beyond.

Foxy was oblivious to the tension between Ridley and Jack. In his domain he barely even noticed that other people were in the room when he was on a roll. Without bothering to say hello to his visitors, he pointed to ‘Sheila’, lying flat on his back on the table in front of them.

‘The DNA sample I took from his bone marrow hasn’t turned up any matches in the national database. So, if you can find me a direct or familial DNA sample to match it to, I’ll tell you who “Sheila” is. What I can tell you is that he was dead before the fire started, because there’s no smoke in his lungs.’ Foxy flicked the wall-mounted light box on, backlighting an X-ray of the man’s skull. ‘The blow to the back of the head is what killed him. The fracture itself is extensive and this darkened patch directly beneath the fracture is the resulting intracranial haemorrhage. He’d have died quickly. What’s left of his teeth tells me that he’s late 30s to mid-40s. I broke his hips and knees to straighten him out, so I can also tell you that he’s five foot ten on the right side and a foot shorter on the left.’

With a howl of laughter, Foxy threw the severed, bagged left foot at Jack — who instinctively caught it before dropping it onto an empty mortuary slab once he realised what it was.

‘Prick,’ he mumbled, trying not to laugh in case Ridley was still in a bad mood.

But Ridley was laughing, too. He seemed different with Foxy — far more casual. Perhaps because there was no crossover between them, no stepping on each other’s toes. Ridley couldn’t do Foxy’s job if his life depended on it, and vice versa. All that left room for was pure, mutual admiration.

Foxy carried on talking. ‘Based on what’s left on the bones, I’d guess “Sheila” was around eleven and a half stone, twelve stone, something like that. And he’s white. So, no ID, but a great starting point for missing persons. You’re most welcome.’

‘Take that description back to the squad room and get them to put it into Missing Persons. Off you go.’

Ridley dismissed Jack with a wave of his hand.

It was a long day of desk and phone work, but on his way home, Jack took a detour through Hackney to drop in on Kenneth Moore, the Formula One engineer who had worked with Jimmy Nunn back in the seventies. Jack had an address, but no phone number, so he had his fingers crossed that Ken was in.

Outside the tower block, he called Maggie and left her a voicemail.

‘I’m going to be working late, so if you fancy a takeaway around midnight, I’ll bring one back with me. Text me if you can and... well, if you can’t, I’ll see you in the morning. Love you Mags.’

The lift in Kenneth Moore’s block was out of order and Jack figured out his flat had to be on the eleventh floor. God, he wished he’d had the man’s phone number. He looked at his watch: 9.30. Across the street was a social club. He’d check there before tackling eleven flights of stairs. Jack’s ‘gut’ was playing a big part in these two cases — the Rose Cottage fire and the search for Jimmy Nunn. He liked this change in himself and hoped it would be permanent.

Jack walked into the club and silence fell while everyone sized him up. They seemed to guess he was a copper.

‘Is Ken Moore here?’ he asked. ‘I think he might have known an old friend of my dad’s,’ he lied. ‘Jimmy Nunn.’

From the far end of the bar, a round, heavily bearded elderly man shouted, ‘I’ll only talk to you if you pay me the seventeen quid he still fucking well owes me!’

Jack turned to the barman. ‘I’ll have a Beck’s and whatever Ken’s drinking, and one for yourself.’

The barman obeyed silently and the club instantly relaxed back into its previous conversations.

By eleven o’clock, Ken had drunk four pints compared to Jack’s two bottles, he’d not drawn breath, and had said absolutely nothing of interest about Jimmy Nunn. The old man had no sense of personal space and no awareness of how bad he smelt. Jack was squashed into the corner of the room trying to keep a safe distance, but it wasn’t working. Every now and then, Ken’s knee would brush against Jack’s and he’d pull away, fearful of what the brown stain down the front of Ken’s beige trousers might turn out to be. Eventually, Ken started a story that was actually interesting. He momentarily slapped his hand down on Jack’s knee, and Jack could feel the clammy dampness of his fat palm.

‘I remember once, Jimmy was showing off to a couple of birds... You know that people say being in a rock band gets you all the women you want? You should try Formula One, Jack. Stone me!’ He opened his mouth wide and howled a hot air combo of beer and beef crisps into Jack’s face. ‘Me and Jimmy quickly decided which bird we were gonna ’ave — and then, for some reason I’ll never fathom, he decided that the quickest way into her knickers was to climb the massive fence between them and us, instead of opening the gate... which was right there, by the way! Not locked or anything. Course he fell on his arse, didn’t he? Them women walked away laughing their beautiful tits off and Jimmy lay on the ground screaming at the top of his voice, “Me arm! I bust me arm!” And he had. I thought he’d dislocated his shoulder, but he’d actually managed to chip the socket and snap his... You know, this bit...’ Ken prodded Jack in the clavicle. ‘What a prick. This was just days before the most important race of his life. Jimmy could have been a big name in Formula One, but instead, he vanished without a trace.’

‘People don’t just vanish, Ken.’

‘His name popped up a couple of years later in connection with the Fisher brothers — you know them? Big names down Soho way.’ Jack shrugged. The name ‘Fisher’ meant nothing to him. ‘That’s ’cos you’re a baby. I’m going back a good forty or so years. When proper gangsters ruled the streets, not skinny kids with guns who shout the odds at each other from opposite ends of the estate. That don’t take balls.’

‘How was Jimmy Nunn connected to the Fishers?’

‘Well, all Jimmy could do was drive cars and fix cars, so it must have been one of those two things.’

Ken necked his pint and then looked sideways at Jack. Jack took a £10 note from his wallet and dropped it on the table.

‘I’ve got to go, but you...’

Jack’s mobile pinged. And before he could finish reading Maggie’s text, Ken was at the bar buying another pint and a cheeky chaser before Jack left.

‘Keep the change!’ Jack shouted.

Jack and Maggie sat in the canteen, eating noodles from a non-specific takeaway right by the hospital’s A & E entrance. It wasn’t a Chinese, or an Indian, or a chippy — but cooked all three amazingly well. As Maggie shovelled the last king prawn into her mouth and listened to Jack, she felt guilty for not being on the rowing machine instead. But he needed her.

‘So, yeah, he was a right prick, by all accounts. Smashed his shoulder and his dreams, all because he was showing off to some woman he fancied. And he must have been with Trudie at the time, so he was an adulterer as well. Nice guy.’

‘It’s not “by all accounts”, is it?’ Maggie reasoned. ‘It’s one account from a man who, by the sound of things, will turn up in A & E with liver failure by the end of the night!’

Jack looked so disappointed in the man he could have ended up calling ‘Dad’. Maggie reached across the table and stroked his arm.

‘Jimmy must have been, what, late twenties in Ken’s story? Of course he was showing off to women. That doesn’t make him a prick, it makes him a boy. He could be a professor of engineering by now. And, if he’s not, who cares? You’ve got to remember, Jack, that this man you’re looking for isn’t your dad. Your dad is the man who’s off on a world cruise tomorrow.’

‘Jesus, is it tomorrow?’

Jack had been told the date they sailed, but hadn’t expected it to come around so quickly.

‘They sail at two, so they’ll need to check in by midday. The cruise is for four months, love, so...’

The missing words from the end of Maggie’s sentence were... this could be the last time you see Charlie.

Jack’s mind drifted off for a moment as he contemplated his dad dying at sea.

‘Do they have coffins on board cruise ships?’

‘Dozens.’ Maggie smiled gently. ‘Most passengers are well over 70. You know, Jack, you’ve been given a unique opportunity to get everything right, for the rest of his life. Take them for lunch and tell them that you love them. They both need to hear that, I expect. Penny and Charlie will have a wonderful time... until the moment it stops.’