Frozen Grave (18 page)

‘Except he doesn’t earn it any more,’ said Carter. ‘What about the classic cars?’

‘He still has those. He has four altogether. A Porsche is amongst them. That’s been SORNed as has a Ferrari. Two cars are taxed and on the road. They are registered to his address.
He must keep the Porsche and Ferrari somewhere else.’

‘It costs a lot of money to keep a car in perfect condition,’ said Robbo.

‘What about the Spanish Hacienda company, Pam?’ asked Carter. ‘Have you found anything else on it?’

‘Not yet. Do you want me to contact the Spanish police in the area?’

‘Hold fire with that. I think we’ll follow up the interview with a home visit, just to keep the pressure on Mr Ellerman.’

Dee Ellerman stared down onto the garden below her. The gardener was tidying up after the storm the previous week. She wondered that he didn’t feel the cold. He had just
a T-shirt on and the temperature had dropped to below freezing.

She opened the window. ‘Mike, do you want tea?’

He stopped on his way towards his van, dragging a large fallen branch behind him.

‘Lovely.’ He smiled.

‘Come in for it.’

‘Okay. I’ll just put this in the van and I’ll be there.’

He came back and hovered in the doorway, afraid to step into the clean kitchen. ‘I’d be better off outside. I’m going to drop bits all over your floor.’

‘It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.’

He started unstrapping his boots. He didn’t like to appear rude and his hands were blocks of ice, even though he’d managed to work up a sweat moving all the wood.

‘Biscuit?’

He sat where she pulled out a chair for him at the table. ‘Never say no to one of those.’

She opened a new packet of chocolate digestives, having been out to buy them that morning.

She placed a plate with biscuits down in front of him and sat opposite.

He took a slurp of tea and it burnt his mouth but he didn’t want to show it. ‘That hits the spot.’ He snapped a biscuit in half and put one half in his mouth. He looked around
the kitchen, trying to think of something to say. He saw her open laptop on the worktop.

‘You studying? How’s your car-maintenance classes going?’

‘Good, thanks.’

‘And what are the other classes you’re taking?’

‘Spanish and IT, website design.’

‘God, I could do with that – I’m rubbish at creating a website.’

‘I could help you.’

‘That’s kind but I think you’d soon realize you’d have your work cut out. I’m next to useless. You must be quite good.’

She nodded towards the laptop. ‘I enjoy it.’

‘You used to be a hairdresser, didn’t you? I remember your husband mentioning it once.’

‘Yes. When I was young.’

‘You’re not old now.’ He smiled.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘You could start it up again.’

‘Maybe – I’d have to retrain – everything’s moved on since I learnt. What about you? How’s the gardening business?’

‘It’s good. It’s difficult to work through the winter but I manage. I need to find something else to do really. I’ve lost my way a bit, I think. I used to be good at
building stuff; loved designing things. I might give that a go again one day. It’s hard sometimes to get yourself moving, isn’t it? I was thinking of asking Mr Ellerman if he might have
any work for me in Spain – you know, on the houses he mentioned to me?’ He looked up at Dee, hopefully.

Dee smiled and nodded. ‘You’ll have to ask him. You have children, don’t you Mike?’

‘I have two, yes. I get to see them every weekend.’ He looked across the table and held her gaze. ‘My wife and I are separated.’

She looked down at her tea and held the mug with both hands. ‘How lovely for you to spend time with your kids.’

‘Yes, I wish it was more. I wish they could live with me but – you know how it is – there’s no way you can make a break-up any different than it is. It’s a painful
process for everyone involved.’

‘Yes.’

‘Mrs Ellerman – if you don’t mind me asking – are you okay? You seem a little upset today.’

‘Thank you for asking, Mike, but I’ve just got a lot on my mind.’

‘Mr Ellerman’s away a lot, isn’t he? It’s a big house to be rattling around in all week on your own.’

‘Yes. But I don’t mind. You get used to being on your own, don’t you? Sometimes it’s much harder being with someone than being alone.’

‘I know all about that. I never thought I could live alone – but you get so used to it. I think I’d have a hard job finding someone now.’

‘You don’t have a girlfriend?’

‘No. I have the occasional date. You know – I’m on a couple of dating sites.’

‘Meet anyone nice?’

‘Yes, but I’ve also met a lot of women who scare me.’

Dee laughed. The sound even surprised her. She hadn’t heard it for so long.

He finished his tea and stood. ‘Better get back to work.’

Dee tidied up and then went upstairs armed with clean washing to put away. She went to stand at the window overlooking the front of the house.

Mike was putting on his protective helmet and doing up the strap beneath his chin. He stopped and looked up to the bedroom window; he smiled at her and then his eyes went towards the driveway.
She knew who it was by the way Mike reacted. But today was only Thursday: JJ usually made his way home on Friday.

Dee heard her husband’s key in the front door.

‘Dee?’ Ellerman closed the door and threw his keys on the table in the hall. He went to see if she was in the kitchen.

‘Dee?’ He climbed the stairs, then stood watching her from the doorway. She was staring down towards the garden still. Mike was busy slicing through a fallen trunk with his
chainsaw.

‘We should sort this room out.’ Ellerman walked in and stood behind her, breathed in her smell. Her long dark hair was plaited down her back; from behind she still looked like the
schoolgirl he’d met. From the front she was just the ghost of her. ‘We can’t keep it as a shrine to Craig. Dee? Come on, let’s go downstairs.’

‘I like being in here.’

‘I can see it’s upsetting you.’

‘It’s not being in here that upsets me. Being close to Craig could never make me cry. Only missing him every day does that.’

Ellerman went down the stairs and out to talk with Mike outside. He looked up, to see Dee watching them from the bedroom window. She had one of Craig’s T-shirts in her hand. She lifted it
to her face and he saw her breathe in the smell of their son. Then she was gone from the window and Ellerman talked through the plans for the garden with Mike for ten minutes whilst he packed up.
Dee opened the front door and came out of the house, pulling her hat down over her ears. Mike stopped talking as she walked towards them; he was packing his tools away in his van.

‘Which class is it today then?’ he asked.

Dee smiled at him and Ellerman thought how she seemed coy; she and the gardener seemed to know one another on a personal level. They must have chatted before, properly chatted.

‘Car maintenance.’

‘Can you have a look at my van for me – there’s a funny sound coming from the engine.’ He grinned.

Dee smiled. ‘I’m not that good yet.’

‘Where are you going?’ Ellerman asked, feeling like the stranger.

‘I always go to my car-maintenance class on a Thursday.’

‘What are you going to be doing today?’ asked Mike. ‘Is it an oil change again?’

‘No. The teacher is taking us to a working garage to show us how to do a full service.’

Mike looked impressed. Ellerman looked bemused.

‘Your wife will be able to save you a fortune, Mr Ellerman.’

‘You must be kidding – she’s not going near my cars. See you later, darling . . .’ Ellerman turned back to Mike, who was still busy packing up his van. ‘How much do
I owe you?’

‘It’s three weeks – so that’s three hundred.’

‘What about the logs?’

Mike stopped loading his van and turned to face Ellerman. ‘Sorry – I don’t get what you mean?’

‘Can’t you take them and sell them? Take it off the money I owe you?’

‘Uh, no. They’re not seasoned, I’m not sure who’d want them.’

‘It doesn’t matter – I just hate waste, that’s all. I’ll have to pay you next time. I’m sorry, I don’t have any cash on me.’

‘You still have my Internet banking details? Can you put some money over as soon as possible, Mr Ellerman?’

‘Run out of beer money, have you?’

‘I don’t drink.’ Mike continued loading his tools.

Ellerman opened the boot of his car and took out his bag. Then he went back into the house and into the utility room, past the kitchen. As he emptied his bag on the floor something dropped out.
Ellerman stared at the sprig of Dartmoor gorse in his hand; its bright yellow flowers seemed garish now and out of place in the stark white of the utility room. He turned it over in his hand. It
meant Megan liked him, he supposed. He wasn’t sure what it meant. She was showing that she was already feeling an attachment to him – he hadn’t lost his touch – that was
reassuring. He still had the charm and the wherewithal down the business end to hold his women’s attention. He didn’t know why he worried so much. Sure, he had good and bad days. Sure,
he had problems maintaining interest and an erection sometimes, but basically – yeah . . . basically, they all wanted something that he could promise.

He placed the sprig of gorse on the shelf next to the washing powder. He might think about giving it to Dee as a present. He put the first load of his clothes into the machine, before picking up
the empty bag and taking it upstairs. As he went into the bedroom he ran his finger along the top of the door and looked at the thin layer of dust on it. He mumbled to himself as he threw his bag
on the bed. Was it too much to ask to keep the fucking house clean, for fuck’s sake? He kicked his shoes across the floor and walked into Craig’s room. Dee had left the door open as she
always did. He knew why – she wanted Craig to be with them all the time, part of their every day. He wanted to let go.

He picked up the photo of Craig from the desk and held it in his hands. The room, the house, Dee, it all served to show him what a failure he was and he couldn’t bear it. He looked at his
text messages. He had heard nothing from Paula. Lisa had texted him from the gym. It was her third text this morning. She wanted him to phone her. He texted her back:

Sorry, honey – on the way to a client’s. Will ring you later.

The reply came straight back:

Don’t forget – you promised you’d come to my friend’s party tomorrow eve.

Shit . . .
Ellerman hadn’t so much forgotten it as chosen not to remember it. He had intended to cry off at the last moment. Tomorrow was the start of the weekend, for
Christ’s sake. Weekends were sacred. They were the time when reality kicked in, when Dee became his focus, when his struggle to make it financially through another week ended, for good or
bad. He wanted to take Dee out somewhere nice this weekend. He wanted to force her to sit opposite him in a restaurant and to look into his eyes. He wanted to tell her she had the power to change
everything. Only she could make things right. They’d drink wine and laugh and flirt and then they’d come back to this bed and make love like they used to. No other woman felt like she
did. All the others were pale imitations of her. He sighed as he lay down on their bed and closed his eyes and his hands clenched the bedspread; he twisted it in his fists. The bed had become a
place of torment to him – so close to her but so far away. He wanted to feel her body next to his whilst they slept but she seemed to manage to take up the smallest space, furthest away, and
he heard her get up every night after she thought he’d fallen asleep. He heard her moving around. He was sure she slept in Craig’s room.

Lisa came back with another message:

Never mind. I don’t feel that well. I’m not going. But I just need to see you, please.

He replied, relieved:

Yes, I feel the same, honey. I’ll ring you later, I promise. Love you. xx

Willis looked at the address she had in her hand for Ellerman.

‘Satnav says it’s on this street. I’ve got a name, not a number, guv. The house is called The Cherry Orchard.’

‘Must be extremely posh not to get a number. Look at the size of these houses.’

‘There it is, guv . . .’

Willis pointed across the road to a high hedge and a collection of storm-damaged trees behind. There was evidence of some recent tree surgery.

‘Someone’s been tidying up,’ Carter said.

‘We passed a van up the road.’

‘Yeah, could be – chances are, if they do one house they do a lot on the same street. We’ll go and talk to him after we talk to Ellerman. There’s one of the cars in the
drive, Eb.’ Carter wound down his window to get a better look at the Range Rover. ‘Bet that costs a lot in fuel.’

‘Need to keep up appearances, I suppose, guv.’

‘Yeah, how much did Pam say Ellerman bought this house for?’

‘Four million, ten years ago.’

‘He bought right in the boom.
Boom . . . bust . . .
So he must have a fair mortgage on it.’

‘He remortgaged it three years ago.’

‘The car, the house, it all belongs to the time he had money – it shows he’s living off past glories.’

‘And investments in Spanish renovations.’

‘Let’s call his bluff.’ They got out of the car and walked across the road and opened the gates to the house.

Carter looked up to see Ellerman at the window. He was on the phone. He was smiling when Carter first looked but his face soured when he saw them. Carter waved. Ellerman’s face disappeared
and he had answered the door before they reached it.

‘Sorry to bother you, Mr Ellerman, we just need to ask you some further questions and wanted to save you a trip to the station,’ Carter said as they stepped inside.

‘Very considerate.’ Ellerman led the way into the kitchen.

Willis looked around. It was immaculate. It looked so spartan and clean it was as if they were waiting to move in.

‘Hope we’re not disturbing you and Mrs Ellerman? I can imagine you don’t get much time to spend together,’ Carter said.