Secrets and Shadows

Chapter 16-2

Fred Burbage watched Jessica hurry out. ‘Bloody hell, boss, a Quadrifoglio, that’s a 50-grand motor,’ he said with awe, unless he won the lottery, such a car was way beyond his dreams. ‘Mind you,’ he added, ’Odds on you’ll never see it again, you know what these blackies are like, she’ll have it down the local car thieves and it’ll be in a container on its way to Belgium or wherever by tonight while she’ll claim it was nicked when she was parked up.’

Grace Swan exploded with fury. ‘Detective Sergeant Burbage, if I ever hear a racist remark like that ever again, I shall have you on a charge quicker than you can say darkie or blackie or whatever other vile name you care to use. Do I make myself clear?’

Burbage sat back as if slapped across the face whilst the others looked as though they could not believe what they had just heard. ‘Yes, yes, sorry, boss, I wasn’t thinking straight,’ he answered contritely.

‘Just you make sure you understand that I mean every word of it. I do not tolerate racism in any shape or form. Understood?’

‘Yes, boss, Grace, I do understand, and I apologise unreservedly. Unreservedly.’

Grace stared at him for a hard 30 seconds, reinforcing her point as Burbage looked down, shame-faced, pretending to read his notes and twiddling his pen between his fingers. With a last angry look, she turned to Brain Endcliffe.

‘OK, let’s move on, Brian what do you have?’

‘Yeah. The neighbours all say that Julia Jarrett, the dead daughter, was a sweet child until she went off the rails about 15 or 16. Rows with her parents, trouble at school, truancy, that sort of thing. A fairly clever kid apparently but then her grades just gradually turned to rat-shit.’

‘Was she known to us? Any drug offences?’ Grace asked.

‘No, she was unknown to the Drug Squad. She only got onto hard drugs after she left home, apparently after another big row with her mother or father. It’s thought she went to Leeds before drifting down to London, but nobody appears to really know what she did after leaving home.’

‘How old was she when she died.’

‘Nineteen, just nineteen.’

‘Obviously, this girl’s death seems to be the catalyst for all that follows, and we need to find out more and I’ll get on to that in a moment. What do we know about the son, David Jarrett?’

‘No one I spoke to,’ answered Emma, ‘had a good word to say about him. Unpleasant, argumentative, rude, the world owes him a living sort of attitude.’ She checked her notes again. ‘As Mr Graham Mather put it, ‘he’s a nasty little shit.’ and ‘a thoroughly unpleasant little bastard,’ according to Jim Swithin.’

‘Thank you,’ said Grace, ‘good, well done.’

She turned to Fred Burbage. who flinched at the fierceness of her glare. ‘Fred, I want you to act as receiver. Terry says you are good for it. All information to be channelled through you. I want everything to be indexed, collated, cross checked. everything. Phone calls logged and followed up, tell me what bodies you need for that and I’ll arrange it. Anything you consider of particular importance or relevance you send to me first.’

‘Yes, boss,’

Grace rolled her eyes in frustration at Burbage’s reluctance to call her by name. ‘Now, you can redeem yourself by making a good job of this. Details are everything. A case lives and dies on details. Get the details right and you make your case, poor attention to details will lose you the case. The devil is in the details. Am I clear?’

Fred thought about making a response along the lines of teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, but one look at her face and he thought better of it.

‘Yes, boss,’

‘Grace!’ she insisted.

‘Yes…Grace. I’m good to go as receiver and you’ll get a thorough job. A solid thorough professional job, my word on it. And again, apologies.’

‘I expect, demand, nothing less. The receiver is a vital component of any investigation. Emma!’

‘Grace?’

‘Emma, we need to find out everything we can about the death of the daughter, Julia Jarrett. Is it in any way connected to this investigation?’ Get onto the Met, is there any reason to suspect that her death is anything other than accidental OD? Will you handle that, please?’

‘Yes, Grace, will do, I’ll get on to that as soon as we are done here.’

‘Thank you. Brian. I want you to carry on digging into the Jarrett’s lives, Donald and Janet, David and Julia, friends, relatives, business associates. Everything. Bank statements, financial situation, did they owe money to the wrong types? Phone calls, letters, laptops, iPads, you know the drill.’ Grace looked at the to-do list she had drawn up the night before. ‘Look at all Janet’s emails, especially anything related to Julia and spiritualism. I want to know what this woman was into.

‘OK, Grace. Got that.’

‘Good. Now, I know that you all listened to the 999 call made by David Jarrett. Give me your thoughts. Did anything strike you as out of kilter or hitting the wrong notes? Any ideas, anybody, however random?’

‘Can we listen to that last bit again’, asked Fred Burbage, ‘the bit about his mother topping herself in the garage?’

Grace nodded to Terry Horton who played the recording back and forth until he found the relevant section and pressed ‘Play’. They all listened intently, ‘and my mother, she’s missing. I think she must have locked herself in the garage and hanged herself.’

and my mother, she’s missing. I think she must have locked herself in the garage and hanged herself.’‘Now why would he say that?’ Fred asked, ‘why automatically assume she’s locked herself in the garage and topped herself? She might have gone shopping. Or to a neighbour’s or joined those Hairy Christmas weirdos, there’s any number of reasons why she’s not in the house. It sounds as though he’s trying to point us in a direction that he wants us to follow.’

Terry, Emma and Jessica nod in agreement.

‘Exactly’, Grace agreed, ‘He told the response team that he thinks his mother Janet killed her husband Donald before locking herself in the garage and putting the noose about her neck.

‘He wants us to go along with a murder/suicide scenario,’ Fred said.

‘So it seems but it’s too simplistic, there is a lot more going on than is apparent on the surface.’

‘Like a swan swimming on the lake at Grafton Park, ‘Fred Burbage chortled, unable to resist the temptation, ‘calm and serene on the surface, pedalling like mad under the water!’

‘Are you always this insightful, DS Burbage?’ Grace asked, acerbically.

‘Oh no, sometimes I have no insights at all.’

‘That I can believe. However, we have a murder to investigate, with or without insights from DS Burbage. The apparent motive seems to stem from allegations exposed at the séance or whatever it was. We need to question those who attended the meeting and especially I want to need to speak to the medium, whatever he, or she, calls him-herself.’

OK, let’s get to it. Terry?’

‘Yes, Grace.’

‘My office.’

‘Yes, Grace.’ he answered, giving the others a quizzical glance.