Chapter Nine

  This was not an interview one could do over the phone. Put simply, someone had to be able to see what sort of shape George Saberton was in because that would form a part of the evaluation of any information he might be able to offer them. ‘If he’s in the home for cognitive reasons,’ Greene said, as he briefed Waters and Serena, ‘we cannot use anything he gives us as evidence, and we need to be cautious about using it as intelligence. You need to keep that in mind when you talk to him.’

  Freeman was there, and when Serena said, ‘Cognitive reasons, sir? You mean he’s probably lost a few marbles,’ there was an odd and awkward moment. She looked at Serena and said, ‘Pardon?’

  Serena Butler had been the first of the team to work with Cara Freeman and the two of them got on well. Serena had missed the warning note, however, and said, ‘If he’s in a home, ma’am, he won’t have all his marbles, will he? He won’t be playing with a full deck, as they say.’

  With an edge, Freeman said, ‘Do they? Marbles and cards. So the people who say those things see mental acuity and cognitive decline in terms of children’s toys and card games. Is that right?’

  Waters could see that Serena had realised it now. She said, ‘Oh no, ma’am, I’m not saying it’s right. I was only-’

  ‘Because anyone representing Lake Central in general and my squad in particular needs to be treating everyone we deal with respectfully. Is that clear?’

  Serena said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Freeman was looking at Waters now. Instead of saying the same words, he mentioned that he had experience of interviewing residents in a care home when they investigated the death of Joan Riley at Rosemary House. He agreed it was best not to make any assumptions beforehand.

  Freeman was making ready to leave the room. She said, ‘Good. I don’t want to hear from the place you’re going to today unless they’re complimenting me on the understanding and empathy shown by my officers. Tom, I’ll be in my office,’ and then she was on her way.

  Greene watched her go before turning to the two of them with an expression of perfect neutrality – it was so perfectly neutral that it conveyed his own surprise more effectively than anything he might have said. ‘OK… I don’t think I need to add anything to that, do I?’

  The two heads shook in unison. Greene said, ‘John’s going to be doing some digging into the Leadsom family from this end. Chris, before you leave Swaffham, get in touch just in case there is anything that needs following up while you’re out there. We’re running up the mileage bill on this one.’

  Outside, as they were walking across the car park, Serena said, ‘What the hell was that about?’

  Waters said he didn’t know – maybe their DCI had a problem with figurative language. Serena scoffed at that – ‘I don’t think so. I’ve heard her use some pretty choice figurative language herself and not just with the troops – members of the great British public are sometimes on the wrong end of it. No. Something else was going on there.’

  He’d already considered it. They knew very little about Freeman but she must have had a good education; things she said and knew made Waters sure of that. But she could curse like a drill sergeant when the occasion demanded it, and he had been present last year when Detective Sergeant John Wilson pushed his luck with the still-new female senior officer, just to see. Wilson had seen all right, and heard. All doubts had been removed in about sixty seconds. Afterwards, reflecting on it, Waters had suspected that it wasn’t an angry outburst at all. Freeman’s response had been calculated and timed to perfection – exactly the right officers were present as witnesses. She had identified Wilson as an opinion former, a potential leader of an awkward squad, and dealt with him accordingly. Waters had wondered whether he was up to that. He could learn all the management skills in the classroom with ease, but there are some aspects to the job in the real world which are unteachable. Did he have what it takes?

  As she buckled the seatbelt, Serena concluded the conversation she had been having mostly with herself – ‘Like I said, something else was going on there. Something personal.’

  They’d spoken to Mrs Jenny Whittome, the manager of the Burystead care home, explaining the purpose of their visit, and she could see no reason why they shouldn’t speak to George. She told them he has good days and not-so-good days – they would just have to make allowances for that. And she would be present herself, the regulations said someone had to be, but she’d do her best not to interfere.

  Mrs Whittome went to fetch him herself and there was a wait of several minutes. After one of those had passed, Serena said, ‘These places give me the creeps. Don’t tell Freeman I said that, but they do. It makes me wonder how the end will be for me… Not this, I can tell you. I’m jumping off a tall building before I finish up in one of these places.’

  Waters was thinking about Rosemary House again, and the characters they had met there; able and interesting people who had lived full and rewarding lives, and who had made a pact to help each other on the way when the time came. But there isn’t a Ralph Greenwood in every care home, there can’t be, and most lives seem to end after months, even years of slow decay. It isn’t the happiest of prospects. Perhaps Serena was right – you make your own quietus. But not from a tall building because he wasn’t that keen on heights.

  George Saberton arrived in a wheelchair pushed by Mrs Whittome. He had been a big man once upon a time, and the heavy, gardener’s hands hung over the arms of the chair like the flippers of an upturned and stranded turtle; he had some movement in the right one but not in the left, and Waters guessed the man had suffered from a stroke. More than likely that was what had brought him into the Burystead home in the first place.

  The manager parked George in front of the two detectives, telling him that if he felt tired, he only had to say and he could go back to his room. At this point, though he indicated nothing to his detective constable, Chris Waters wasn’t optimistic about the interview.

  Sure enough, the speech was a little slurred and one-sided, more from the right side of the mouth than the left. But George Saberton had plenty to say; wherever the bleed had been, it was not in the hippocampus.

  ‘Jim Goodrum? You’ve spoken to Jim, then? How is that awkward old bastard? Still in the same cottage, you say? Lost his wife, though… Well, I’m sorry to hear that, she were a little treasure – I used to tell him that, far too good for an old miser like him. Are you investigating him? What’s he done?’

  Waters began to explain, still wondering how much detail might be left after twenty years. Did George remember that a woman’s body had been found in the woods on the Wissingham estate, found by Jim Goodrum himself on a June morning?

  ‘Well, who’s likely to forget such a thing as that? It were the talk of the place for months. Far as I know, they never did find out who she was, either. Awful business. She was tied up, and murdered…’

  George looked at Mrs Whittome and nodded, apparently pleased that she looked suitably shocked at the turn taken by this interview; the lady herself checked with Waters and received another nod – yes, this is what they were here to talk to her client about. Waters, of course, had learned not to hurry an interview, not to ask too many questions too quickly.

  George said, ‘And now you’re interviewing old Jim about it? Again? I can tell you sure as eggs it weren’t Jim. All Jim was ever guilty of was not paying for a round in The Speckled Hen.’

  Waters said, ‘Jim has been very helpful but just as a witness, George. He’s not under investigation, and neither are you. But we do need some help understanding what was happening on the estate at the time. Jim said you would remember a pop festival that took place in the week before he found the girl in the wood.’

  George Saberton twitched himself into a more upright position, as if he needed to steady himself before he launched into this one. ‘Pop festival!’ He spat the words out like two grapes that had gone off. ‘Remember? I should think I do ef…’ George had old-fashioned manners – he seemed to realise that there were ladies present, looked at them in turn and continued, ‘… I do remember that. Every year they come and buggered up the lawns in front of the house. They were a bunch of hippies with no respect for property nor for other people’s work. Mr Leadsom provided toilets and that but as often as not they’d go in the shrubberies we spent the rest of the year looking after. As I say, hippies. Free love. If you ask me, it was about free everything – only nothing’s free ’cause someone has to pay in the end. Just not them.’

  Waters had seen Serena writing down the name. He said to George, ‘How long did these festivals go on for? Was it just a weekend?’

  ‘Too bloody long! Some of ’em would be turning up a week before they was supposed to, just hangin’ around bein’ a nuisance. Every night dancing about, singing and chanting all sorts of rubbish. I don’t know why he put up with it as long as he did.’

  ‘He? Mr Leadsom?’

  George nodded and said, ‘Mr James. Not that he was there often by then. It were obvious they were going back to London. That year it was mostly Mr Ronnie in charge and talking to him was a waste of time ’cause he was one of ’em!’

  Waters said, ‘One of whom, George?’, feeling the ghostly presence of his last grammar teacher nodding approvingly in the background.

  ‘One of the ’ippies. If you ask me, it was him that started it all off.’

  ‘So, this Mr Ronnie – was he the estate manager? You said he was in charge.’

  ‘No, he weren’t the manager. He was a Leadsom. Mr James’s younger brother. Ronnie Leadsom.’

  Serena’s pen was busy again. Waters said, ‘This is helpful, George. Ronnie Leadsom was the person who organised the festival, and you complained to him about the problems it was causing – the damage to the lawns, that sort of thing. Can you remember the names of anyone else? Any of the people who came to the festival? That might help us to find a few more witnesses.’

  George’s good hand waved in Waters’ direction, correcting him – ‘Organised ain’t quite the word I’d use. That last year it were disorganised chaos, worse than it had ever been. There was more of ’em and they was wandering about in the villages, getting’ up to all sorts. Got so bad even the local vicar turned up and had a go, had a right row with one of ’em one afternoon. As to who they were…’

  Serena caught Waters’ eye and he acknowledged her. George was frowning, trying to see back through the years. Eventually he said, ‘No, I ain’t got a name for you… There was a tall bloke, your sort of height I expect but big with it. He had long black hair and a beard, used to wear a robe thing. Fancied himself as a bit of a Jesus, I’d say. They was always followin’ him about. That’s who the vicar had the row with, I know that. And Jim Goodrum, he met the same bloke wanderin’ about in the woods, he told me… And we told the police all this, you know, at the time. But it never came to nothin’, did it?’

  Waters agreed, saying that some crimes take longer to solve than others, to which George retorted that twenty years is a bloody long time; behind George, Waters could see Mrs Whittome smiling to herself. Serena would have the question ready and he nodded to her.

  She said, ‘You have a good memory, George, and we’re grateful to you for seeing us. You said the local vicar spoke to the man you’ve described – that they had some sort of a row. When you say “local”, do you know where the vicar was from?’

  Waters had thought the man might be tiring – he had slumped a little more to his left. He twitched himself upright again but this interview would soon come to an end.

  George said, ‘St Mary’s in Stone Warren. I don’t recall his name but he’s still there. Leastways, ’e was a couple of years ago. I still got family out that way. We had a christening and it was ’im who took the service. Funny little man but a proper old-fashioned sort of vicar. Not many of them left.’

  Serena said, ‘George, what were they rowing about, the vicar and the man who was a bit of a Jesus? Any idea?’

  George smiled lopsidedly at her reference to his own words. He said, ‘Not really. Just givin’ him a bit of the old hellfire and damnation, I reckon. Now – he was arguing with two of ’em in front of the whole group. A load of ’em laughing at what the vicar was trying to say. I remember that. The other one was always about with him. Not so tall, not so hairy. Younger. He was a mate of Ronnie Leadsom’s. Thick as thieves they were…’

  Outside, in the car park of the Burystead home, they talked it over. Saberton had been a very useful witness, Waters agreed, but to what? They still had nothing that placed the girl at the festival. Collecting another dozen names of people who had been at Wissingham Hall meant nothing unless they could show that Rose – he had fallen into it himself by now – had been there as well. Of course it seemed likely she had been, but likely isn’t nearly good enough; English law demands propositions beyond reasonable doubt. And even if they located some of the individuals George Saberton had mentioned, what then? They had no image of the girl to show them, and who was going to remember someone dressed in jeans and a T shirt at a pop festival?

  Serena shrugged and was not deterred. She often had good instincts about people and something in the story had aroused her interest; Waters had learned not to argue his team members out of their hunches, only to keep a sense of proportion, to act as a sort of back pedal coaster brake, just slowing things down, not bringing them to a halt. And he did have thoughts of his own – especially about the involvement of the vicar, Reverend Gray. The man had gone out of his way to prevent the exhumation of the body, and then he had hardly left the graveside in the hours it took to carry it out. What were the exact circumstances by which Rose came to be buried in that churchyard rather than any other? Waters recalled talking to Professor Lindsay when she remarked on the very good state of preservation of the remains – she had said, ‘But that’s a solid maple coffin which will explain it, those don’t come cheaply.’ Waters wondered just how much it had cost, then, and who paid for it.

  He phoned in from the car park and spoke to DI Greene. John Murray had not been idle and Greene told them what had been discovered. James Leadsom had never been a banker but he had been a big name in hedge funds in the 1990s, one of the biggest in the UK. There were headlines in financial newspapers calling him a superstar in the short-selling universe. Whatever that meant, he had made millions and wasn’t afraid to spend them – Wissingham had been just one of his toys. That wasn’t the end of the story, however. Murray had followed the trail in his typically dogged fashion. In 2008, along with so many others, Leadsom’s empire had collapsed. Since then he had hardly appeared in the pink pages; in 2016 there were rumours of a comeback into tech shares but there was no evidence that this had taken place. If the attempt to disappear after that was deliberate, then it had failed – Murray had found a postcode which had James Leadsom living on the Lincolnshire coast. A routine check of criminal records also threw up the same James Leadsom: in 2011 he had been convicted of a drink-driving offence and received a twelve month ban from driving.

  ‘All of which doesn’t get us very far,’ said Greene, echoing Waters’ own words to Serena only minutes before. ‘We’re not going to track these people down just to ask them vague questions about nameless and faceless girls who might or might not have been at a minor pop festival twenty years ago. As his name has come up and you’re in the area, have another word with the vicar, Chris, and good luck with that. If you can, be back in here by two.’

  Chapter Ten

  The doors to the little church were open but the Reverend Gregory Gray was not there. They went outside and walked around the building, passing the patch of bare earth where the body had been removed, and arrived back at the lych-gate. The sunshine was bright and they had moved in and out of the shade cast by the elms and ash trees – it was a scene pretty enough for even Serena to remark upon it, and she didn’t usually ‘do’ the countryside.

  At the gate they were debating whether to return to Lake when an elderly man appeared on the street, walking a collie. Waters said good morning and asked the man whether he might know the whereabouts of the vicar. When the man halted, the dog immediately sat – it was not on a lead. The two detectives were subjected to a stare over the rims of a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles before the man said speculatively, ‘Well, I suppose you could try the vicarage…’

  Waters said, ‘Oh, yes. I wonder if you could point us in that direction?’

  The man took his time again, as if life had taught him to be wary of city folk turning up and asking tricky questions; the dog sat staring down the road, taking no interest whatsoever, despite some encouragement from Serena. Eventually the man said, ‘It’s that big house next to the church.’

  And he did then point, presumably in case these people were as stupid as they seemed. Waters thanked him. The man gave a single nod and walked on, the dog perfectly at heel.

  When the door opened, it was Gray himself. He recognised them immediately and his face darkened – he didn’t invite them into the house. Waters’ apology for disturbing the man again seemed to be ignored. The only way forward was to be business-like.

  ‘Sir, we’re here because we are continuing the investigation into the death of the woman on the Wissingham estate twenty years ago. We have been interviewing local people today and your name has come up. We’d like to come in and talk to you about that. Would you mind?’

  There had been no surprise or concern evident on the man’s face; after a short pause, he pulled back the door he had only partially opened and they went past him into a hallway. It was dark, almost dingy, and there was a faint musty smell – not offensive but old, as if the vicar had brought it with him from the church, little by little through the many years he had lived and worked in Stone Warren. They knew it must be at least twenty years, though the man himself did not seem to be ancient. As they followed Gray into a sitting room, Waters guessed he lived here alone – a guess that proved to be correct.