Gift Wrapped (26 page)

‘Are you saying you took a bribe, sir?' Hennessey asked.

Grypewell nodded. ‘Yes, I am saying that. A hefty sum but all it did was pay off my debts so I never benefited. I never saw any of it.'

‘I see ... please carry on,' Hennessey replied softly.

‘Well, Mellish, the idiot, left a paper trail to my door. His accountant found out ...' Grypewell caught his breath.

‘Blackmail?' Hennessey sat forward. ‘Is that what you are saying, sir?'

Grypewell gritted his teeth and nodded. ‘It would have totally ruined me as a politician. Me! A man of my calibre ... me!'

‘Yes,' Hennessey sat back in his chair, ‘it would have done that all right, and no mistake.'

‘Mellish paid him off. He had to pay him off because I couldn't. I never had any money. Not a penny all my days. But that lazy accountant was greedy. He wanted more ... He contacted me again ...' Grypewell caught his breath again. ‘Anyway, a few days later Mellish told me that the accountant had been “taken care of”.'

‘“Taken care of?”' Hennessey repeated. ‘What did Peregrine Mellish mean by that?'

‘I assumed ...' Grypewell again winced with pain. ‘I assumed it meant he'd paid off Wenlock and that Wenlock was satisfied because we never heard from him and we were all happy. Mellish had his go-kart track, I had enough to pay off the moneylenders and prevent my legs being broken and Wenlock got his six-figure wedge.'

‘Six figures!' Hennessey whistled. ‘That's big money.'

‘It was high six figures,' Grypewell repeated. ‘If I had that sort of money when I was twenty-six then that wretched girl would have married me. Instead she went off with a lawyer with a big, black car and I was a bachelor all my days ... I never did have no luck.' He gasped for breath. ‘Never no luck with nothing. Then I lost my seat on the council soon after. Now, I watched my little TV and saw that Wenlock's body had been found.' Again he pointed to his small television set. ‘Then I knew what Peregrine Mellish had done and I didn't want to pass over keeping that information from the police.'

‘Good man. If I write out a quick statement, will you sign it?'

‘Yes,' Grypewell wheezed. ‘But make it quick ... I think you had better make it quick.'

Hennessey glanced up at Matron Temple who said, ‘There's paper in the office,' and she walked quickly from the room.

Five minutes later Earnest Grypewell signed the statement which Hennessey had written and read out to him in the sombre presence of Matron Temple. It was to be the last act of Earnest Grypewell before he slid from this world to the next. Where, dear reader, we hope that he found the peace and contentment which so clearly eluded him in this life.

It was Tuesday, 16.40 hours.

Thursday, 8 June, 10.35 a.m. – Christmas Day, 01.35 hours

In which a confession is obtained, the tender and the too genial reader is privy to George Hennessey's other great joy and in northern France a young man walks under a starry sky, and our tale concludes.

P
aul Bartlem remained silent for a few moments and then he slowly, very slowly, stood and walked to the window of his living room and stared vacantly out into the narrow street and to the black houses at the other side. Eventually he turned to Webster, who had remained seated, and said quietly, ‘It is a relief. I am relieved ... and at least we can now have closure. My sister Helen will have to come to terms with it but eventually she will accept it and she, too, will have closure.'

Webster remained silent.

‘But in a ditch ... in a ditch ... and naked ... how ignominious is that? And he was found just ten days after they had reported him to the French authorities as a missing person?'

‘Yes,' Webster replied. ‘I am very sorry.'

‘So where is Nouzonville?' Paul Bartlem glanced to his left as a car drove slowly down East Mount Road.

‘It's about five miles ... or eight kilometres north of the French border, sufficiently within Belgium for the Belgians to have treated it as one of theirs and not to have contacted the French police. A couple of hundred yards from the border and then they might have asked the French to check their missing person reports but five miles ...' Webster replied apologetically.

‘And no identification,' Bartlem appealed, ‘nothing at all?'

‘Nothing.' Webster felt awkward, helpless. ‘The height and the age at death are so far the only indication that he is Mr Edward Bartlem, that and the location, being about fifteen miles from where he was reported missing.'

‘Yes,' Paul Bartlem allowed anger to creep into his voice, ‘but with a very useful international boundary between his body and where he was last seen and where the missing person report was made.' He fell silent again and then asked, ‘What happened to him? I mean, what happened to his body?'

‘He was given a name and he was buried, just a simple graveside service ... the undertaker, a police officer and a priest,' Webster explained. ‘We would do the same.'

‘Not cremated?' Bartlem queried.

‘No, sir, in such circumstances an unidentified deceased person is always buried – again, we would do the same,' Webster continued. ‘It is the policy to do that in case a relative should come forward at some time in the future. The relative can then request the body be cremated but of course the reverse can't happen.'

‘Fair enough. That's fair enough, I suppose.' Bartlem folded his arms in front of him. ‘So, tell me what happened to him.'

‘I can't, I'm afraid,' Webster replied. ‘We don't know. All that the Belgian police have reported is that his body bore no signs of violence ... no injuries at all. It is only the absence of anything that might identify him which is strongly indicative of foul play ... that I grant you ... but it isn't evidence ... so we probably will never know what did happen to your brother. I am very sorry.'

‘Again, that is fair enough, I suppose.' Bartlem looked down at the carpet at his feet. ‘I can't say I like it but it's fair enough. But are you definitely sure it's him? Are you sure it's Edward?'

‘No,' Webster replied and thus caused Bartlem to glance at him questioningly, ‘it's not certain until we have a familial DNA match,' Webster explained. ‘We'll need a few of your scalp hairs or a buccal swab of your saliva to match DNA taken from the body. If they match then, and only then, will we know whether the body found in the ditch in Belgium is that of your brother, Mr Edward Bartlem.'

‘Do you want to take the samples now?' Paul Bartlem asked eagerly. ‘I am of course very willing ...'

Webster held up his hand. ‘Not just now, sir, thank you. One of our forensic chemists will be calling on you in a day or two to take a sample of your DNA. We'll send it to Belgium and they will notify us of the results. As soon as we hear from the Belgian police we'll notify you.'

‘Thank you.' Paul Bartlem nodded slowly. ‘But I know that it will be our Edward's body. You know, I've never been to Belgium. I have a reason to go now ... we have a grave to visit, me and my sisters.'

Antoine Chadid reached for a pair of scissors and cut out the short news article appealing for witnesses, then went up to his bedroom and rummaged through a collection of old photographs and, finding the particular photographs and the negatives, he placed both in an envelope to await his brother's return from overseas. He and Jules had always done everything together, and they would, he believed, continue to do so.

The red recording light glowed softly. The twin cassettes spun slowly. Hennessey sat beside Yellich. Opposite them Peregrine Mellish sat beside his lawyer who had introduced himself, for the benefit of the tape, as ‘Percival St John of Ellis, Burden, Woodland and Lake, Solicitors and Notaries Public of Saint Leonard's Place, York.'

Hennessey noted that Peregrine Mellish looked nervous and withdrawn and sat with his arms folded, his eyes downcast. The four men sat in silence. It was broken eventually by Hennessey, who said, ‘It doesn't look good, Mr Mellish. For you, that is, it doesn't look good at all, especially now that we have acquired the possible murder weapon.'

‘Possible,' St John repeated. ‘You say possible ... can you explain that, please?'

‘Yes, as we have said quite simply, I mean that forensic tests have still to be completed, but if the blood on the file is that of Mr Wenlock, if the file fits the damage to Mr Wenlock's ribs ... you see, the distinctive V shape is the key. The Home Office Pathologist, Doctor D'Acre is testing that now, and if your fingerprints are on the handle ... then it's the murder weapon.'

‘Can you lift fingerprints after ten years?' St John asked. He was a portly man in his early middle years, wearing bifocal lenses, an expensive-looking suit, a gold watch, and reeking of aftershave.

‘It is possible,' Hennessey replied. ‘It's certainly possible. The file was found tightly wrapped in a plastic bag and sealed, so yes, it is possible.' Hennessey paused, and then he turned to Peregrine Mellish. ‘And the murder weapon, if it is the murder weapon, was found on your property, Mr Mellish, and you had a powerful motive: he was blackmailing you. That plus the deathbed statement of Mr Earnest Grypewell, given, freely so, at his request and signed in front of an independent witness in the form of a nursing home matron of good character.'

‘The Crown Prosecution Service has run with less and still got a result,' Somerled Yellich added. ‘Much less. Much, much less.'

Mellish glanced sideways at Percival St John, who shrugged his shoulders in a manner which clearly said, ‘I can't help you, not unless you are willing to plead guilty, then we can argue for a reduction in sentence, a reduction in the minimum time to be served'.

‘You need to do some hard thinking,' Hennessey said. ‘You need to start working for yourself instead of against yourself.' He paused. ‘We'll give you a little time to talk to Mr St John here. This interview is terminated at ...' he glanced at his watch, ‘... eleven thirty-four hours in the forenoon this day as has been previously indicated.'

The recording light glowed softly; the twin cassettes spun slowly. Hennessey and Yellich sat opposite Julia Bartlem, who smiled confidently. She sat alone, having politely declined the offer of legal representation.

‘This is being recorded?' she asked.

‘Yes,' Hennessey growled. ‘It keeps us both right.'

‘Even the silences?' Julia Bartlem smiled. ‘I confess I quite like the silences.'

‘Yes,' Hennessey replied, ‘even the silences. Silences are useful; the longer the silence usually means the interviewee is withholding something.'

‘Or has nothing to tell you.' Julia Bartlem continued to smile. ‘Do I get a copy of the tape?'

‘Yes,' Hennessey hissed, ‘that's why there are two cassettes – one for you and your legal team if you should engage one and one for us and the Crown Prosecution Service.'

There followed another long period of silence, then Hennessey leaned forward and said, ‘Shall I tell you what I think, Mrs Bartlem? Shall I tell you what I think happened?'

‘Oh, please do.' Julia Bartlem also sat forward. ‘I think I'd like to hear what you think, Mr Hennessey.'

‘I think you and your sister helped each other to get rid of your husbands,' Hennessey spoke coldly. ‘I think you cooked the whole thing up between you and I think that it was years in the planning. You both did that to acquire their wealth.'

‘Ah ... the evil Cleg sisters ... sometimes also called the evil sisters Cleg.' Mrs Bartlem inclined her head to one side. ‘Do you know what a cleg is, Mr Hennessey?'

‘A horsefly,' Hennessey growled.

‘Yes, found in northern England and Scotland,' Julia Bartlem replied. ‘It bites you for your blood. If ever you've been bitten by a cleg you'll know it, that I can promise you.'

‘So I believe,' Hennessey snarled. ‘I have never had that experience. But I will take your word for it, Mrs Bartlem.'

‘Me and my twin sister got taunted at school because of our surname. You know what children can be like to each other, how cruel they can be ...' Julia Cleg spoke as though she was beginning to tell a story and so Hennessey didn't reply. He wanted her to talk; he wanted her to implicate herself in something, somehow. His experience and intuition told him to remain silent. She continued. ‘The chief tormentor was a girl called Sarah Gosling but nobody could torment her and call her “duck” or anything because she was a big girl – I mean, very big. She took after her father who was a farm labourer. One boy once made fun of her name and she broke his nose with just one punch. She was that sort of a girl; she could do it to others but no one could do it to her.'

‘I have met the type,' Hennessey commented.

‘So she lived in a tied cottage, remote,' Julia Bartlem continued. ‘It was, probably still is, and when the weather was bad she used to go home using a shortcut through a small wood. So one day, when it had been raining hard for two days and with no let-up in sight, she went missing and they found her in a ditch with her head all bashed in ... they said that she was a real mess, blood and bone everywhere.'

‘That's interesting,' Hennessey commented.

‘There was chaos and confusion, all sorts of police running round asking questions, but they never arrested anyone and no one ever suspected us, the two little innocent Cleg sisters, but things changed for us after that ... no one called us the “horsefly twins” again.'

‘You murdered her!' Hennessey raised his voice. ‘Is that what you are admitting to?'

‘I'm not admitting to anything, Mr Hennessey. Besides which, she was bigger, like I said, than us, a real farm labourer's daughter.'

‘She wouldn't have been bigger than both of you,' Hennessey growled, ‘and if you got the first blow in and put her down ... and the rocks to bash her skull in with were all most conveniently to hand.'