Barry got to his feet and turned his back on Mike as he stuffed the small bag of money earmarked for him inside Mike’s bag.
‘I’ll still burn down the cottage for you, ’cos I’m not a double-crossing prick like you. I’m a man of my word. It’ll look like an accident and you’ll be in the clear. Course, you’ll be skint but, well, there’s a lesson about sharing in there somewhere.’
From behind him, Barry heard a gurgle and turned to see Mike with a fire poker raised high above his head. As the poker came down, Barry raised his left arm to protect his head and his radius bone snapped. In a blind fury, he wrenched the poker from Mike’s hands, sending him off balance and spinning to his left. Once again, the red mist took over and before Barry knew what he was doing, he’d hit Mike as hard as he could on the back of the head. Mike landed face down, blood pouring from the split in his skull and merging with the red and brown swirly patterns on Norma’s fake Persian rug.
Ridley’s mobile buzzed in his trouser pocket as he stood opposite Superintendent Raeburn, hands clenched behind his back. There was a perfectly good chair right in front of him, but Raeburn, along with every other officer who worked with Ridley, was used to him doing everything standing — even sucking up, which is what he was doing now. He’d been attentive all morning, stopping just short of obsequious, because Raeburn was getting a second answer from the coroner today, after Ridley had persuaded her to push harder.
‘It’s got to be low-key, Simon,’ Raeburn revealed eventually.
Ridley hid his glee behind a well-controlled, ‘Thank you, ma’am.’
Across in Aylesbury, Prescott squinted at the grainy CCTV image of the pest control van leaving the grounds of Rose Cottage. The driver looked alarmingly like an old-school Photofit. It gave them nothing and he knew it. His phone rang out on speaker and he prayed that Ridley wouldn’t answer.
At sunrise the next day, a small ring of low-level LED lighting outlined the first grave belonging to Harry Rawlins, providing enough extra light for the JCB mini-excavator to do its job. The turf had been dug up by hand and was stacked in squares ready to be relaid later. Ridley and Raeburn watched by the graveside, while several plain-clothes PCs made sure that dog walkers and druggie teens didn’t stray on to church grounds.
‘The diamonds had better bloody well be in there, Simon,’ Raeburn whispered as she stamped from foot to foot, to keep her toes from freezing.
Ridley appeared to be far less concerned with property than people.
‘It’s also time we knew who he was, ma’am. He must have family. People who miss him.’
Raeburn snorted. She was in no mood for sentimentality. Her predecessors had worked hard to keep this fiasco out of the press all those years ago, and she didn’t want to be the one now standing in front of the press explaining how they’d buried the same man twice. She needed something to distract the public. Solving a 35-year-old diamond heist and recovering the jewels would do nicely.
Angela had taken a break from sewing cash bundles into the coach seats and had brought Connie along on her weekly visit to the graveside of Dolly Rawlins. She didn’t usually visit so early, but Connie needed to get out of the flat — she was missing the crisp fresh air of Taunton. Being blocked by plain-clothes police officers was the last thing they expected; if Connie had been sober, she’d have panicked. The police politely apologised for the inconvenience, before sending Angela and Connie on their way.
As they left, Connie’s eyes focused on a small group of officers tucked in against the wall of the church, sheltering against the cold.
‘He’s here!’ she gasped. ‘Jack Warr’s here. This is to do with us, Angela. They’re digging up Dolly!’
‘Why on earth would they be digging up Dolly?’ Angela dragged Connie away before she could be overheard. ‘Calm down, this doesn’t have anything to do with us. I can see Dolly’s grave from here and they’re nowhere near it. They’re round the front somewhere.’
As they walked away, Angela looked back at the faint glow of portable LED lighting coming from the main churchyard. Whoever the police were digging up, they were important enough to have one of the big graves out front.
It took another hour to dig down as far as the coffin and hoist it out onto the grass. The brass plate on the lid read ‘Harold Rawlins’, another reminder for Raeburn of the mistake they’d made all those years ago. The coffin was put into the back of an undertaker’s van, and Ridley, with Raeburn in his passenger seat, followed.
Foxy was in early so that he could open the coffin as soon as it arrived. This was the ‘bag of bones’ Jack had spoken to him about. When he popped the lid, all that was inside the coffin was an incomplete skeleton. It was easy to see every inch of the coffin without having to move the body itself. There was nothing else. No diamonds. No bag or box that could possibly contain diamonds.
Raeburn walked away.
‘What was she expecting?’ Foxy asked.
Ridley headed for the door. ‘A promotion.’
Chapter 22
Audrey Withey was furious about being brought into the station at 7.30 in the morning. She’d not even had time to dry her hair so, as she sat in Interview Room 1 dunking biscuits into her coffee, she complained about uncontrollable frizz.
‘I’m not having my picture taken!’ she shouted. ‘I flatly refuse!’
The female PC standing just inside the door was used to disgruntled visitors and was, therefore, perfectly able to block out the noise of Audrey’s voice.
Anik’s early morning knock on Audrey’s front door had been designed to catch her off guard. It was an uncomfortable start to the day if you had something to hide. Audrey, with a lifetime’s experience of being around criminals, was suitably wary. Her aggressive attitude and posturing came from uncertainty — perhaps even fear.
On the other hand, Susan Withey, who sat in Interview Room 2, was a naturally early riser. So, when Laura knocked on her door at 7.30, she’d already been up for a couple of hours. She was calm as she sipped her tea. She had no experience of police interview rooms and, therefore, no ingrained fears; she simply assumed that they wanted a chat about Mike.
Ridley and Anik joined Susan and offered her more tea, which she accepted and then sat down. Anik tucked his legs neatly under the table, but Ridley sat further back, giving himself the legroom to put his left ankle onto his right knee. He was relaxed, so Susan was relaxed.
‘We need your help, please, Mrs Withey,’ Ridley began politely. ‘We now have evidence that suggests Mike was involved in the Aylesbury train robbery back in ’95. This isn’t what either of us expected or wanted to find out, right?’
Anik hid his smile. In one sentence, Ridley had put himself firmly on the same side as Susan and they were now allies.
‘Obviously, with Mike being a police officer, we want to be certain that the evidence isn’t misleading us. I can’t divulge the details, but if you could provide us with Mike’s whereabouts on several specific dates, that would be incredibly helpful.’
Anik opened his notebook in preparation for the next phase of the interview.
‘DC Joshi has a list of the dates in question. He’ll also be asking you about the money Mike received from the sale of the Spanish villa and the money he used to buy the house you currently occupy. I’m sorry that these are intrusive questions. They’re unavoidable at this stage.’
Ridley doubted Susan knew anything about her husband’s criminal activities. If she was a victim, she needed to be treated with the respect and empathy that deserved.