Silent as the Grave Read online

  “Deceased’s skin does not have flushing consistent with raised levels of carboxyhaemoglobin, counter-indicating carbon monoxide poisoning. (Blood sent for gas analysis—results to be appended.)”

  The final paragraph was damning.

  “Despite the apparent circumstances that the deceased was found in, it is my belief that he did not die from self-administered carbon monoxide poisoning whilst under the influence of alcohol but was killed by manual strangulation. Verdict: homicide.”

  Sunday 8 April

  Easter Sunday

  Chapter 31

  Easter Sunday. The holy day of obligation had been second only to Christmas in Warren’s household as he’d grown up. Every year, unless his father was working, the family had gathered around the dining room table and enjoyed a roast with all of the trimmings. They’d never been one for Easter egg hunts, but Warren and his brother, James, would usually end up with their own body weight in chocolate. A small compensation for being forced to sit through the longest and dullest service in the liturgical calendar the day before.

  He knew from Susan’s anguished text message that she’d been dragged along by her parents. This year’s marathon had lasted a record two and a half hours, with all seven old testament readings performed, each followed by a psalm then a truly epic homily that welcomed almost a dozen new converts to the church. This was then rounded off by the priest’s traditional invitation to all of the children in the congregation to come up for a blessing and an Easter egg. Warren felt a sense of relief that he’d been spared the ordeal, followed by a slight pang of guilt. He hadn’t been to any services at all this year.

  He glanced at the clock in the kitchen where he’d been sitting in front of his laptop since seven a.m., willing the appearance of an email with news of a breakthrough. Nothing. Not even the customary junk email.

  Office or church? The question sprang unbidden. He was still on annual leave, under no obligation to go into the office. There were no pressing leads. It was just a case of sifting through data.

  For the second day in a row, Warren felt helpless. The papers found by David Liebig had helped confirm what they already knew—that his father’s death was a murder. But what help was it? The document was over twenty years old; those involved in its creation were dead. The original was locked in his office, but what use was it? There were unlikely to be retrievable fingerprints on it. Perhaps there were some DNA traces, but how could he get it tested? In order for it to be any use in court it had to be processed in an approved laboratory. It had to be entered into the computer system using the correct identifiers and had to be assigned to the correct case.

  But what case? He could hardly assign it to his father’s suicide. That was sealed and marked as solved. Any attempt to add further information to it would immediately be noted, and questions would be asked, if only to forestall what appeared to be human error. If he assigned it to another case then any halfway competent lawyer would claim a breach of the chain of evidence and demand it be declared inadmissible.

  For the time being it would need to stay locked away.

  He picked up his phone. Perhaps Sutton might have some ideas. His thumb hovered over the speed dial, before he placed it down again.

  It was his DI’s day off and he knew that he was likely to be celebrating Easter as well.

  Sod it. Perhaps Sutton was right and he should try a bit of divine inspiration.

  The church around the corner from Warren celebrated Sunday services at nine a.m. It was already nine-forty and he saw little point in turning up for the last few minutes, even if that was when the Eucharist was served. It took Google mere milliseconds to find the times of service at Saint Ignatius on the other side of town and within a few minutes Warren was on his way to the ten a.m. mass.

  If he’d thought that the gentle familiarity of the Catholic mass would provide inspiration, or at the very least some peace for his tortured soul, he was to be disappointed. By the time the congregation were invited to renew their baptismal vows, the emphasis on death and Christ’s resurrection had left Warren weak-kneed and nauseous.

  He had to leave. After clambering into his car, he pulled out of the car park. He didn’t know where he was going or why, he just needed to drive.

  The car radio was tuned to BBC Radio 4 but it was too depressing. He stabbed at the search button. Maybe he’d turn it back to the BBC when ‘Desert Island Discs’ came on, but for now he craved something more upbeat. The radio found Heart and immediately his mood lifted. Somebody had requested ‘Take on Me’ by A-ha and before he knew it he was singing along, transported back to the eighties nights that he’d loved so much as a student.

  Thank God Tony wasn’t there. The DI was, in Warren’s opinion, a bit of a musical snob and he’d taken to hiding his CD collection in the glovebox whenever he gave him a lift.

  The song faded out, segueing into the next track without any irritating commercials or even more annoying chatter from the DJ. Immediately, Warren felt his mood dip. The opening bars were familiar. He knew them but couldn’t place the song. For some reason, he felt overcome with melancholy. And then as the lyrics started he recognised it. It was a song he generally avoided, the words a little too close to home. Words that made him think a little too hard.

  The car in front slowed suddenly, its brake lights glowing a bright cherry red, before it swung into the middle of the road to turn right without using any indicators. Warren swerved hard, giving the driver a long blast on the horn. The driver responded with a finger.

  Just occasionally, Warren had fantasies about leaving CID and transferring to traffic so that he could do something about these sorts of drivers.

  Turning his attention back to the road and the radio, Warren realised it was too late to turn off the radio. The song had got him now. Somehow he manoeuvred the car to the side of the road, dimly remembering to hit the hazard warning lights.

  The lyrics drilled into him, their simple poignancy finally releasing the emotions that had been so cruelly exposed and for the first time in years, Warren MacNamara cried, wishing, just like the singer to dance with his father again.

  Monday 9 April

  Chapter 32

  Warren had finally made it home on Easter Sunday, feeling slightly foolish, but at the same time much lighter. The sudden release of emotion had had something of a cathartic effect and he’d immediately fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  “Sir, I’ve got an idea about how we might get hold of some of those missing documents that DS Kent was trying to track down for you. I’m surprised Pete didn’t think of it.”

  Warren’s interest perked up immediately as Gary Hastings entered his office. The young detective constable had returned from his short break in Devon with Karen Hardwick and his skin was lightly sun-kissed. Pete Kent had left his notes in his in tray and Warren had decided that in the absence of any other pressing leads, he may as well let Hastings continue Kent’s work before the sergeant came back in after the Bank Holiday. So far the younger man hadn’t questioned exactly why he was looking at such an old case and Warren hoped to avoid that discussion as long as possible.

  “Go on.”

  “The operation was a joint one between Hertfordshire and West Midlands, right?”

  “Yes, West Mids were responsible for scanning everything into HOLMES since most of the offences happened on their patch.”

  “Well back then before computers were in full use, joint operations needed two sets of all documents.”

  It was true. Nobody had ever accused the police of being afraid to generate unnecessary paperwork, Warren thought cynically. It must have been even worse before the sharing of information was routine; the first generation of the HOLMES system was only just finding its feet by the mid 1980s.

  Suddenly, he saw where Hastings was heading. “The archives in Welwyn.”

  “Yes, sir. All solved cases are filed. These days the paper documents are scanned then marked for destruction, but if West Mids were responsi
ble for that happening, it’s possible our copy of the paper documents weren’t flagged as scanned and so were left un-shredded. They could still be on the shelf in Welwyn.”

  * * *

  The paper archives in Welwyn took up a lot less space than they once did; nonetheless, the scanning and destruction of unnecessary paper documents from old cases was a slow business and the room resembled a warehouse, it’s metal shelves stretching to the ceiling and accessible only with assistance. Large signs warned against climbing the shelving to find what one needed. You couldn’t even use the ladders unless you had a “ladder safety training certificate”. (Tony Sutton, upon seeing the email inviting him to attend the course had politely declined, citing a clash with an “arse-elbow differentiation workshop”.)

  Entry to the archives was restricted to those holding the rank of inspector and above and officers needed to sign in with their warrant cards. All photocopying of documents had to be recorded and it went without saying that their removal was largely prohibited. In deference to the Bank Holiday the archives were only open for a couple of hours that day, unless specifically requested. Warren was still wary about raising that sort of interest and so he’d faced an agonising wait until he could just turn up unannounced.

  For the most serious crimes, even when solved, the case was often regarded as unclosed since appeals could and did occur decades after conviction. It was therefore necessary to sift out the day-to-day chaff generated by any investigation that could simply be scanned, from those documents where a physical copy of the original document should be available for presentation in court.

  For that reason the two cardboard files containing Hertfordshire’s copies of the paperwork from the Delmarno investigation, Operation Lietmotif, were still waiting to be processed, their order on the job priority list well towards the bottom.

  Warren’s mouth was dry; at last he was going to find out who had been responsible for the operation. The person who started the ball rolling, the person who Warren suspected was still calling the shots a quarter of a century on, the person who had almost certainly covered up the murder of his father. With trembling hands he opened the neatly ordered box file.

  An hour later, he admitted defeat. The single document that he wanted was nowhere to be found. There had to have been one though. The drugs raid must have been authorised by somebody, with everybody involved listed, and that document would have been a necessary part of the prosecution’s submission to the court.

  But that was decades ago and those details simply hadn’t been read out loud in court during the hearing, and so didn’t appear on the court transcript. Warren felt a cloud of despondency come over him. Had the document been destroyed?

  An idea slowly came to him. What if it hadn’t been destroyed? What if it was too important to be destroyed? Twenty minutes later he had the answer—or at least the next step on the road to getting the answer he needed.

  The signature was illegible, but the name in the access log was neatly printed and easily read. On the tenth of September 2010, barely three days after Delmarno’s release from prison, DCI Gavin Sheehy, Middlesbury CID, had visited the archive.

  Chapter 33

  Warren and Tony Sutton walked up the garden path, legs brushing against the rose bushes lining both sides of the paving stones.

  “Gavin’s wife loves roses.” Sutton was nervous, making small talk.

  Warren said nothing, letting him continue. It would be the first time Sutton had met his former mentor since the whole affair had kicked off the previous year.

  “For their silver wedding anniversary, he even had a variety named after her.” He pointed to the centre of the lawn, where a small flower bed had been cut as a centrepiece. The neatly pruned shrub stood in contrast to the overgrown grass and unweeded flower beds that surrounded it.

  The house was quiet this time in the evening, feeling empty. A small patch of light shone through a crack in the curtains.

  Warren rang the doorbell. Beside him Sutton was tugging at the hem of his suit jacket, licking his lips nervously. Warren had told Sutton that he didn’t have to come, that he didn’t need to be here for this meeting. But Sutton had insisted. And Warren was grateful for his presence. Meeting the man who’d helped cover up his father’s murder because he was too cowardly to do the right thing still made him feel sick; the sturdy presence of his friend and colleague lent him strength.

  No answer.

  Warren rang the bell again.

  Still no answer.

  “Where is the bastard?” Warren’s voice was clipped, angry.

  He pulled out his mobile phone again, dialled the number that Sheehy had given him, ready to leave another angry voicemail.

  The ringing was faint but unmistakeable.

  The two detectives exchanged glances. Either Sheehy had left his phone at home before going out or he was in the house.

  “What’s he playing at?” snapped Warren. He’d returned to Middlesbury from the archive in a despondent mood, although he’d tried to hide his disappointment from an eager Gary Hastings.

  However, it hadn’t taken long for Warren’s dejection to turn to anger. It was now obvious that Sheehy had been playing with him all along. Whether the story he had told Warren was true or not, one thing was absolutely clear—he had been manipulating him for his own purposes since the moment they had met in the pub car park almost ten days before. The information that he’d given Warren had been trickled out a snippet at a time and Warren felt foolish for letting it go on as long as it had. It was true what Sutton and Bob Windermere had said, the death of Warren’s father was his Achilles’ heel, clouding his judgement. He’d never have allowed the likes of Sheehy to call the shots normally.

  It was early evening before Warren finally got through to Sheehy. He hadn’t said why he wanted to meet him again and had ignored the man’s demands that they continue to meet discreetly. Warren had had enough of Gavin Sheehy’s games. It was time Warren took control of proceedings and if that meant confronting him in his own home, then so be it.

  Giving up on the doorbell, he rapped hard on the door.

  After a few more seconds of silence, his knuckles now stinging, he moved across to the window, jamming his face against the glass, trying to see through the gap in the curtains.

  Sutton moved behind him. “Open up, Gavin. It’s Tony,” he shouted through the letter box, before suddenly letting the spring-loaded brass plate snap back with a loud clattering noise.

  “Shit. Get the door open, now!”

  * * *

  It had taken repeated blows from the shoulders of both men to force the solid front door open and Warren could feel the bruises forming as he watched the ambulance pull away, its blue lights flashing.

  “Will he survive?” Grayson’s mobile had rung out twice before he’d finally picked up. The raised voices in the background suggested that he was at his club.

  “Too early to say, sir. Tony and I cut him down. He hung the rope around the top of the stairs but the drop wasn’t enough to kill him. He was unconscious when we found him, but he’d managed to get his feet onto the overturned stool, supporting some of his weight.”

  “Changed his mind, then?” Grayson’s tone was neutral and Warren couldn’t tell if he was relieved or contemptuous.

  “Maybe.” Warren was similarly non-committal. With all that had happened lately, he wasn’t prepared to take Sheehy’s apparent suicide bid at face value.

  “SOCO are on their way. Tony Sutton has gone in the ambulance.”

  “Probably for the best. Any sign of his wife, what’s her name, Jess?”

  “Judith.” It figured that Grayson wouldn’t know the name of Sheehy’s wife. “Apparently she moved out some time ago. She’s staying with her elderly mother.”

  “Get someone onto it. The last thing we need is some bastard from the local press connecting Sheehy’s address with the ambulance and doorstepping her before we tell her ourselves.” Despite what Sheehy was accused of the service st
ill looked after its own. “Any idea why he did it?”

  “Too early to say,” Warren repeated. Too much was happening at once, and he needed time to think. He also needed time to search the house. He knew he’d get it in the neck from the scenes of crime team, but he had to see if he could find whatever Sheehy had removed from the archives. It stood to reason that it was in the house somewhere.

  Hanging up, he glanced at his watch. An apparent suicide—attempted suicide, he corrected himself, Sheehy was still alive as they wheeled him into the ambulance—was necessarily playing second fiddle to a fatal stabbing in Stevenage town centre and the CSIs had asked him to secure the scene for a couple of hours before they could send a team.

  Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, he decided to start in the living room. Fighting his instincts not to disturb a potential crime scene, he looked around the small room.

  Why had he done it? Sheehy had eventually agreed, albeit reluctantly, to Warren’s visit and knew nothing of Sutton’s attendance. What had happened during the hour or so it had taken them to travel to his house? Had the shame finally got to him and he decided to finish it all? It didn’t seem to fit with what Sutton had told him about the man, the gutsy fighter who’d risked his career to keep his beloved Middlesbury CID open. The man who’d risked even more than his career to plant the piece of evidence that would bring down a criminal enterprise. Misguided perhaps, and Warren couldn’t condone what he’d done, but it didn’t sound like a man who’d kill himself.

  But then he’d been under intolerable pressure. Warren couldn’t bring himself to feel sympathy for the man, but he’d seen that pressure himself when they’d first met: the bloodshot eyes, the shaking hands and the attempt to cover up the smell of the booze with breath mints. And now the empty whisky bottle on the table.