Frozen Grave (19 page)

‘She’s not here.’ Ellerman held Carter’s gaze. Carter nodded thoughtfully.

‘Maybe that’s best. We don’t want to upset her unnecessarily. But then you said she know about your affairs, Mr Ellerman?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘It could be looked on as very much our business when one of them is murdered and it turns out she lent you money.’

Ellerman was looking flustered. His face was reddening.

‘We wondered if you could show us any more details about the company you own called Hacienda Renovations?’

‘Of course. Like what?’

‘Like a brochure. We’d love to see the kind of houses you find to renovate – before and after. That kind of thing. I’m really interested, might even be looking to invest,
you never know.’

‘Okay. I can probably find something to show you. Wait here a minute.’

He left them in the kitchen and walked across the hall and into a room that Carter could see was super neat and tidy. Nothing was left out.

Ellerman reappeared with a few pages of house details from an estate agent and some architect plans.

‘I am working on this one at the moment.’

‘Very nice.’ Carter took the plans and spread them out on the pristine worktop. ‘Mind if I take a detailed look at the floor plan? It’s always interested me –
renovating, building my own place. So these are the plans for this house here in the picture, is that right?’ Ellerman nodded. Carter looked at the original specifications on the estate
agent’s blurb. It was written in Spanish. Carter was half-Italian. He could just about read the Spanish.

‘It says that you have a well, a bore-hole, that, by the look of it, you’re planning to cover with your dining room.’ Carter looked up. Ellerman was irritated. He gave a
dismissive shrug with his shoulders and changed his mind about looking over Carter’s shoulder at the floor plan on the worktop.

‘This may not actually be the exact floor plan for this exact house. But I don’t keep the current plans here.’

‘Do you have an office outside here?’

‘No, I tend to work on my laptop anywhere I am.’

‘And that is all around the UK?’

Ellerman looked instantly caught out.

‘Yes, I travel to see clients. I wouldn’t say it’s all around the UK.’

‘South? North? This is when you’re selling your yachts, is it? Or is it when you’re asking for donations for your Hacienda fund?’

‘Okay, I’ve had enough of your questioning. I find that extremely rude.’

‘No problem. We’ll send a squad car round to pick you up and take you up to Archway for an interview.’

‘What is it you want to know? I don’t understand what you’re accusing me of.’

‘We believe you took money from Olivia Grantham to invest in a company that, as far as we can see, and judging from what you’ve shown us, doesn’t really do a lot. You
can’t show me one completed project.’

‘I certainly can.’

‘Do it then.’

Ellerman gave a one-shouldered shrug and started packing up the floor plan from the worktop. ‘I don’t have the photos here.’

‘Show me what you showed Olivia Grantham to make her invest ten thousand pounds in your business. You – a man that she supposedly meets just for sex. You must have charmed her to
make her do that. She wasn’t a stupid woman. She was a partner in a legal firm. Did she draw up an agreement for the loan?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Ellerman looked like a drowning man.

‘Did she say when she wanted you to pay it back?’

‘We hadn’t discussed that.’

‘I find that hard to believe. Every lawyer I’ve ever met wanted everything written down and signed for and they want to charge you an arm and a leg. Was she charging you
interest?’

‘She may have wanted interest.’ Ellerman had become quite still. He stood motionless, hardly daring to breathe. ‘You obviously haven’t found any written contract between
us otherwise you’d have the answers to these questions.’

‘We are going through her paperwork and her PC. I don’t doubt that we’ll find it. So now you don’t have to pay it back. Olivia is dead and you get to keep the
money.’

‘Is that what you think my motive would be? A mere ten thousand pounds? That’s ridiculous.’

‘Maybe, but whoever set her up to go in that building may not have expected her to get killed. They may have aimed to just teach her a lesson, or give her the kind of thrill they thought
she wanted – after all, she was a thrill seeker. Who’s to say someone didn’t just take it a step too far?’

‘Not me.’

‘Not your style, derelict buildings?’

‘No.’

Carter paused. The kitchen was still. ‘Where did you usually meet?’

‘We met in many places. I told you that before.’

‘No, you told me you’d only met her a few times. “We met in many places” sounds like more than a few.’

‘We met at her flat. We sometimes went away.’

‘Have you many investors in your Hacienda company, Mr Ellerman?’

‘A few.’

‘Women that you meet?’

He didn’t answer at first then he bristled. ‘You know I’ve been racking my brains to think where I’ve heard your voice before, Inspector, and I am pretty sure it was you
who phoned me pretending to be from Naughties customer services. If that’s so – I’m not an expert in law but I know someone who is – and that is unethical to say the
least.’

‘Was it a man with a cockney accent?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry, Mr Ellerman – you lost me there. That’s the trouble with the cockney accent – we all sound the same. Okay, thank you, Mr Ellerman. Have a good day.’

Carter turned on his heels and Willis followed. They reached the car and got in. Carter didn’t start the engine. He sat looking at Ellerman’s house.

‘I want to know every deal Ellerman has ever done.’

‘Yes, guv. But . . .’

‘What?’ He turned to Willis.

‘Is it because he’s a tosser or is it because he might have murdered Olivia Grantham?’

‘Point taken. I will not let my dislike of Mr Ryanair Jetsetter get in my way. Olivia Grantham must have drawn up some legal paperwork about the money she invested. We’ll find
something.’

‘Hector has gone through her paperwork from her flat. There was nothing about Ellerman or Hacienda Renovations.’

‘Then we need to go into her office and see if she left it there somewhere.’

Willis’s phone rang. She looked at the caller number on her screen and declined the call.

‘Your mum?’ Carter looked across at her.

‘Yes. It’s the hospital again.’

After they’d gone, Ellerman paced around the kitchen, thinking what he should do. He had to keep focused, positive. He went into his office, sat at his desk and logged on
to his Internet bank account, bringing up his statements. He had to see exactly how much more he needed to cover expenses at home and abroad this month and then he would be able to make a plan to
find the money from somewhere. He spent the next hour moving money around and jotting figures down – no matter how hard he tried, it didn’t add up. He spent the evening watching
television with Dee. They ate pasta with a bought sauce. Ellerman picked at his. Neither of them spoke. Dee went to bed early. The next day they hardly saw one another: Ellerman worked in his
office and Dee worked in the garden or watched television by herself. By Sunday they had begun to row. Dee had cried herself to sleep and Ellerman had drunk almost a whole bottle of brandy.

On Monday morning, Dee went out without telling him where. He got up, made himself some coffee and then paced about the kitchen.

He picked up his phone and wrote a text and sent it to several contacts:

Remember I love you.

And then he wrote another to Megan:

Coming down today
.
Be with you at three.

He knew what he should do now. He’d go to Megan’s first and charm her, push the idea of Spain again and show her the photos. Then he’d go and see Emily and get her to transfer
ten thousand and that would see him through the next ten days and by that time he might have some results from the yacht deals.

He went and repacked his bag hastily, then he went into the bathroom and looked at his wife’s shelves and saw the bottles of perfume he’d brought her back from his travels abroad.
Some of the bottles were still in their boxes, cellophane on. He slipped his hand into the back of the shelf and pulled out Angel. He particularly liked that smell but his wife never wore it. He
also picked up a bottle of Chanel No. 5. He put his bag in the boot of the Range Rover, then headed out of London and took the scenic view down on the A303 towards Devon. The further he got from
London the better he felt. He sang along to his music. By the time he turned into Megan’s courtyard he was in a great mood. He switched off Santana’s ‘Black Magic Woman’ and
stretched as he got out of the car. The sun was glorious. The cold air – reviving.

Megan met him at the door. He kissed her.

‘Close your eyes and hold out your hands,’ he said as he placed the Chanel No. 5 in her outstretched palms.

‘How kind.’ She looked at it and he knew she would never wear it. Come to think about it – he would have been better off if he’d given that to Paula and chosen a book for
Megan, one of those arty photography ones.
Damn
– he should have thought about that.

‘Fancy a picnic?’ she asked, putting the perfume on the kitchen table.

‘Lovely.’

They walked up through the field she owned at the back of her property. Bramble, a pure-bred Dartmoor pony, was grazing there. Megan stopped to stroke her.

‘She won’t bite.’ She laughed at Ellerman’s reluctance to come close.

‘Best place for a horse is in a burger.’

‘Don’t listen to him, Bramble.’

She stroked the pony’s mane as it nuzzled into her and nudged her with its head.

As they walked through the gate at the top of the field the moor took hold: waterlogged tufts of dead fern squelched beneath their feet.

After skirting the village they came out on the main road. Haytor stood dark and solid, stark on the horizon. They crossed to follow the old granite tramline that ran up and round to the right
of Haytor, and walked for ten minutes in silence as they climbed steeply until they reached a place where the last of the cut granite was piled ready for transportation that never came.

‘On a fine day you can see the sea,’ Megan said, smiling, happy, as they stopped to get their breath.

‘Lovely.’

He could see that it would take a lot to shift her from this place. If he ever married her he would make her move up to town.

They skirted round to the right of the discarded granite, and around the back of the largest of the three quarries. The way into the quarry was a narrow path, flanked by high hedges and built
into the hillside. It was a pathway that led straight into the base of the quarry and to the edge of the lakes there.

Ellerman looked back across the crater. The lakes in the basin were beginning to freeze. Snow was still white and unsullied on the stems of grasses blown into the quarry and surviving in the
stillness.

‘It’s so still here – what an eerie place.’

‘Yes – but beautiful. Things grow here that wouldn’t survive on the top. Welcome to my secret world.’

Ellerman picked up a stone and threw it into the centre of the deepest pool.

‘Won’t be long before it’s completely frozen. The water is as grey as all this granite.’ Ellerman looked around him. ‘Do you come here very often?’

‘Every day. It’s the inspiration behind a lot of my work. I see it change through the seasons. I love the way the light reflects on the water and illuminates the walls of the quarry,
creating depth in the shadow. I love the way the trees have taken root between the slabs of cut rock. I love the way . . .’

He kissed her. ‘And I love the way you feed me. I’m starving.’

‘Of course. Let’s eat. Follow me – I have just the table for us.’

He followed her past the lakes and up into a sheltered place where the granite had been cut and left in slabs and blocks. Megan unpacked her picnic and laid it on top of the slabs.

Ellerman couldn’t wait to get away from the quarry. The more he sat there, hemmed in by a hundred feet of jagged rock, three freezing lakes between him and the path out, the more he felt
the knuckles back rapping on the top of his head.

‘Are you okay?’ Megan looked at him, concerned.

‘Yes. Just a little headache after the drive, that’s all. Have you got any wine in that backpack?’

She smiled. ‘Of course.’

She took out a bottle of Spanish Rioja and showed it to him.

‘I thought we could have a toast to us – to good times ahead, holidays in Spain in your farmhouse there.’

Ellerman brightened. He turned his back on the chill breeze that had come to swirl around the basin and send ripples across the centre of the lakes where the ice had yet to reach. ‘Perfect
choice. You clever little thing.’

For a moment, Megan looked at him, puzzled by his choice of words, but then she smiled and let it pass. She opened the wine and poured and handed him a glass then raised hers to a toast.
Ellerman had half finished his already.

‘To us.’ She felt a flash of annoyance at his rudeness but she recovered quickly whilst he finished his glass.

Monday was Diane’s first day helping at the Faith and Light hostel. It went so well that she stayed on for the evening service. They were short-staffed for cooking
dinner. Zoe was having the evening off to spend with her boys. Diane had been looking forward to it. It felt different to working. Everyone was grateful and took time to explain things to her.
Simon helped to cook the dinner. Diane found herself peeling spuds for the mash and packing sausages on trays. She met some interesting people and they treated her as a person in her own right, not
a widow, not a grandmother or mother. She was Diane, the volunteer. Sheila and Lyndsey were very friendly.

The time flew by; it was so busy. When they had finished serving dinner there was the tidying and washing up and then the preparation for breakfast. Diane sat down for a cup of tea with Lyndsey
and Sheila.