The Garden Party (20 page)

‘Goings on?' Herron seemed alarmed. ‘There's no goings on in this house.'

‘Nothing to worry about then is there?' Swannell approached Herron. ‘Do you chat here on the front step, or inside?'

‘Here,' Herron replied, then pushed the spaniel with his foot and said, ‘Quiet!' He turned to Swannell. ‘It's a good day. Here will do.'

‘You know, Johnnie,' Brunnie said. ‘You don't mind if we call you Johnnie . . .? You know, Johnnie, folks who don't invite us into their homes make us suspicious because we always think it means they have got something to hide.'

‘It makes us want to come back mob-handed, search warrants and all. And we like doing that.' Swannell added.

‘We open every cupboard, open every drawer, pull up the carpets . . . all that number,' Brunnie added. ‘But you know that, you've been served a search warrant before now.'

Herron breathed deeply, clearly fighting to contain his anger. ‘You'll have done your checks.'

‘All criminal records checks done, mate,' Swannell replied. ‘The Bedfordshire Police know you . . . in fact, they are very interested in you . . . and also the Metropolitan Police.'

‘That's us,' Brunnie smiled.

‘You're from the Met?' Herron spoke sharply with a clear note of alarm in his voice.

‘Yes, all the way from New Scotland Yard via the Bedfordshire Police in Luton, just to see you.' Swannell stood square on to Herron. ‘Nice day for it.'

‘So you'll know I am not wanted for anything.' Herron's breath smelled of mouthwash. ‘I've done no crookin' for years.'

‘That we know of,' Swannell replied. ‘So what have you been doing in order to be able to afford a pile of bricks like this?'

‘This and that.' Herron avoided eye contact with both officers. ‘Mostly that.' Then he stepped aside. ‘You'd better come in; I can do without a revisit. Hope you'll see and hear what you want and leave me in peace. I just want a quiet life.'

Swannell and Brunnie stepped over the threshold and into the entrance hall of the house which they saw was wide, well illuminated with natural light, and spacious. A slender, auburn-haired woman, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans and much younger than Herron, appeared from a corridor to the right of the foyer and upon receiving a glare from Herron, turned and went back the way she had come, rapidly so.

‘That was the trouble and strife,' Herron announced dismissively. ‘The third.' Swannell watched the woman leave the entrance hall noting how frightened she seemed.

Herron glanced at Swannell in the exact manner he had glared at his wife. Then he said, ‘This way, please.' He led Swannell and Brunnie into a vast, to their eyes, and garishly decorated, to their taste, living room. The floor was covered by a yellow carpet neatly fitted to each wall, the walls were papered in yellow patterned wallpaper, the ceiling was painted a light shade of blue. The furniture was a matching set of white settees and armchairs. A glass-covered coffee table interrupted the floor space. The wide window looked out on to the back lawn of the house; a huge lawn surrounded by Leylandii reaching upwards for perhaps twenty-five feet. An outdoor swimming pool and barbecue area were also noted by the officers. ‘So you have questions?' Herron sat on a chair but kept Swannell and Brunnie standing.

‘It's about Arnie Rainbird,' Swannell announced. ‘You know Arnie Rainbird?'

‘Arnie? Yes, I know Arnie, haven't seen him for years, but yes, I know Arnie, course I know Arnie; we go back a long, long way. He's retired, just an old blagger put out to grass same as me; we both enjoy the quiet life now so a visit from the Old Bill puzzles me.'

‘I dare say it would,' Swannell smiled. He, like Brunnie, was tall but he was of a slighter, thinner build and smartly dressed, an observer might think, in a lightweight summer suit. ‘It's actually not just about Arnie Rainbird, Johnnie, it's also about a felon called Sydney Tyrell. Remember him, Johnnie; tall, old geezer?'

‘And it's also about a short geezer called Leonard Convers,' Brunnie added.

‘Tyrell, Convers.' Herron pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Can't say I know them . . . now or ever.'

‘Really? You see we think you might know them,' Swannell pressed forward. ‘You'll have read about the bones?'

‘The bones?'

‘Found in a wood up in Ilford. It made the news, we got good press coverage. They were buried in a wood.'

‘Yes . . . that . . .' Johnnie ‘Snakebite' Herron pointed to a plasma TV screen mounted on the wall opposite the window. ‘Yes, I did catch that item, didn't pay it much attention though.'

‘Shame, because those were the bones of Tyrell and Convers, they were their earthly remains.'

Herron's jaw slackened, his eyes dilated, slightly but nonetheless noticeably. It was, thought Brunnie and Swannell, an interesting and noteworthy reaction. ‘So what has that got to do with me and Arnie Rainbird?'

‘Ah.' Swannell smiled. ‘That is the question; we are here in order to ask you to help us to answer just that question. You see, you and Arnie were in the same firm at about the time that Convers and Tyrell got chilled . . . then heated up in a sense.'

‘We were?'

‘Yes,' Brunnie replied, ‘and Tyrell and Convers, we don't know how they fitted in, if they fitted in at all, but we do believe they were gofers, a pair of low grades.'

‘Well that explains it.' Herron smiled. ‘Always a lot of gofers, always a lot of them, can't be expected to know them all.'

‘Anyway, Arnie Rainbird got himself banged up.'

‘Yes, someone grassed on him.'

‘Who would do that,' Brunnie asked, ‘to a nice bloke like Arnie?'

‘Dunno.' Herron sat back in the chair. ‘Don't think anyone ever knew.'

‘Well, we'll leave that on one side but when Arnie came out – served only ten of his twenty stretch – you threw a party for him here . . . in this house . . . and out there in the garden.'

‘I did?'

‘Yes,' Swannell replied coldly. ‘You did.'

‘All right, so I did.' Herron shrugged. ‘So what? When a top blagger is released he always gets a party thrown for him. It's the way of it. I swear I never knew that was against the law.'

‘We have only just heard about the party,' Swannell explained, ‘seven years ago this summer. Word has just reached our little shell-likes and what we heard in our little shell-likes doth interest us.'

‘Muchly,' Brunnie added. ‘It doth muchly, muchly interest us.'

‘Oh yes?' Herron replied, defensively.

‘Yes,' Swannell continued, ‘because it was about that time that Convers and Tyrell disappeared. They went missing a few weeks beforehand.'

‘Coincidence.'

‘Possibly.' Swannell smiled. ‘Possibly.'

‘Has to be,' Herron persisted.

‘I wouldn't be so sure,' Victor Swannell replied. ‘You see, the clever old medics can tell us a thing or two. And in the case of Convers and Tyrell they can tell us that those two boys were well smashed up. All the bones were broken, some maybe before death, some after. They were definitely sawn in places but that would have been after death to make them fit neatly into a container, I would think, but all were charred.'

‘Charred?' Herron queried.

‘Burnt,' Brunnie explained. ‘They had been burnt on a fire. Did you have a bonfire at the party you threw for Arnie Rainbird seven years ago, here in this house and in the garden out there?'

‘Just a barbecue.' Herron nodded to the barbecue area.

‘So no big bonfire at all?' Swannell clarified.

‘No.'

‘And you'll give us a statement, a signed statement to that effect?' Swannell asked.

‘Possibly. I'm a bit wary of giving statements. I'll need my solicitor present before I do that, so I won't be signing anything today.'

‘OK, but you're certain there was no fire during the party, just a barbecue?' Swannell asked.

‘Certain,' Herron replied with finality. ‘Definitely no other fire.'

‘All right, we'll see what Arnie Rainbird says.'

‘You'll be visiting him?' Herron seemed alarmed.

‘Yes, of course.' Swannell glanced round the room, so very garish, he thought. ‘If it was his party he'll know what went down.'

‘He'll say the same as me,' Herron insisted.

‘Possibly.' Brunnie nodded gently. ‘But see it from our point of view, Johnnie, two gofers got well served up right about the time that Arnie Rainbird gets out after a ten year stretch, they were battered and their bones were burnt.'

‘Not here they weren't.'

‘Well, you say that.' Victor Swannell shifted his feet a little. ‘But we have people who say different.'

‘Who?'

‘Ah . . .' Swannell smiled. ‘That is something we have to keep quiet about.'

‘But people,' Brunnie added, also smiling, ‘note the plural, more than one person . . . we mean people . . . two or more.'

Herron scowled at Brunnie.

‘Do you live here alone, Johnnie?' Victor Swannell asked. ‘I mean just you and the trouble and strife?'

‘Yes,' Herron replied in a muted manner, ‘just me and her.'

‘Your wife is much younger than you?' Brunnie studied Herron's facial expressions. He had to concede that the man wasn't giving much away, but he was displaying a little emotion and what he did display was, thought Brunnie, very interesting.

‘Yes, she's younger. I like it that way,' Herron explained. ‘It makes me feel young. None of us get any younger and I like slowing that bit up if I can. But technically speaking we are not married. I only married once, technically speaking.'

‘So we understand.' Swannell smiled. ‘I told you we paid a courtesy call on the Bedfordshire force in Luton. They have a keen interest in you, Johnnie, a very keen interest.'

‘They have?' Herron growled. ‘I don't ever see much evidence of them.'

‘Yes, they're still interested in the whereabouts of wife one and wife two.'

Herron remained silent.

‘They disappeared, apparently,' Brunnie added.

‘Yes, people do . . . always tragic.'

‘Agreed, but ninety-five percent are located one way or another within twenty-four hours. But when the wife of a wealthy man disappears and is not found, that is a little suspicious. And when wife number two of that selfsame man also vanishes, that becomes very iffy and –' Swannell held up his index finger – ‘when the man is known to the police as a career criminal then, well, then we understand the interest the Bedfordshire boys and girls have in you, we understand it very well.'

‘They've had me in for questioning a few times but they've always let me go, and it's been a few years since I was last questioned.' Herron shrugged. ‘I reckon we have to wait until they turn up, then we'll see what they have to say for themselves after walking out on me like that.'

‘Unless . . . unless . . . you know it is possible for there to be murder convictions without a corpse.'

Herron shrugged. ‘So the Bedfordshire Police told me but they could only tell me of two such convictions.'

‘But it can happen.' Brunnie glanced out of the window at the vast flat lawn at the rear of Herron's house. ‘Nice and convenient,' he added, turning to Herron.

‘What is?'

‘Wife number one and wife number two disappearing like they did,' Brunnie explained. ‘I mean, with a house like this, a divorce would be very costly . . . but I dare say that is a matter for the Bedfordshire Police.'

‘I'm glad you see it that way.' Herron braved a wink at Brunnie.

‘So tell us a bit more about the party,' Victor Swannell asked.

‘More? Thought you'd got off that and were on to my missing wife and girlfriend.' Herron let a note of alarm creep into his voice.

‘Hardly started,' Brunnie smiled. ‘Hardly started.'

‘Nothing more to tell. We all had a good time when Arnie came out.'

‘Are you still in touch with the guests?' Swannell asked.

‘One or two . . . a card at Christmas, you know how it is.' Again Herron shrugged.

‘What about the girls?' Brunnie probed.

‘What about them?'

‘Still in touch with them?'

‘Naw.' Herron smirked.

‘They were promised two hundred smackers for a night's work. They got fifty quid for nine days' work.'

‘They wouldn't have come otherwise, but I don't know the details; I just allowed my house to be used. The catering was done by someone else and the girls came under catering.' Herron smirked.

‘So who did the catering?' Swannell snarled.

‘Do you know, I can't remember. It's been a long time and anyway none of them complained.'

‘No, they didn't; that's because they were terrified into silence.'

‘That's a shame,' Herron leered.

‘We are hearing reports, Johnnie; something really very heavy went down at that party, something which terrified a bus load of streetwise women.'

‘So sorry to hear that.'

‘But that's a real weakness, Johnnie, it has a flaw.'

‘A flaw?'

‘Yes,' Swannell explained, ‘time, Johnnie, that's the flaw. It's like that saying about fooling people, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time”. Abraham Lincoln said that.'

‘Yeah.' Herron looked at Swannell. ‘I heard that somewhere.'

‘So, it's just like that. You can scare some of the people all of the time, and you can scare all of the people some of the time, but you can't scare all of the people all of the time.'

‘So those working girls, those brasses, they were well scared after the party.' Brunnie held eye contact with Herron. ‘But that was seven years ago.'