On the next morning Cynthia was pleased with the decisions which they’d made as it saved time getting ready, although she was relieved when she met up with Gladys outside that she hadn’t made any variations. As usual Gladys had volunteered to drive and the shiny red roadster had already rolled down the drive and was waiting by the roadside. “I’m glad it’s a morning funeral,” Cynthia volunteered, shivering despite her coat. “I don’t like the afternoon ones when it starts to get dark and gloomy.”
“Plus the fact the snow showers are supposed to become more frequent later on,” answered the ever-practical Gladys. “Come on, let’s get on and do this.”
They accomplished the journey in just about the hour they’d expected and started following the detailed instructions when they got close to Old Cottage Lane. “I remember this,” Cynthia said as they approached. “It’s that muddy track we need just before Charlie’s road. I noticed the steeple of the church.” They turned up the track, which Gladys negotiated with great care as it led in a serpentine upward trajectory to the top where the church came into view. The building was traditional with a short, squat tower surmounted by a narrow, rather incongruous looking steeple. It was surrounded with a jagged array of tombstones, some so ancient that they had virtually descended into the earth. A well-preserved lychgate stood at the outer end of the paved pathway up to the church door. The car park to one side might have been level when it was dug out many moons ago but now offered an uneven stony surface with deep holes eroded by rainfall at irregular intervals. Gladys slowed down to walking pace as she took a vacant spot at one end in the hope of avoiding other vehicles getting too close.
The other cars already there were unremarkable save for a glistening black Bentley with personalised number plates and wheels with silver spike inserts standing right in the centre on its own. “Proceeds of crime?” asked Gladys with raised eyebrows as they climbed out and she carefully locked the car, testing the doors after she’d done so. “Better not get too near it—the alarm will be sensitive!” They skirted round the Bentley and then saw three people dressed in black emerging from the car parked closest to the gate. One of them they recognised as Maria Willis. She was with another woman who looked like a younger version of her and an older man walking with the aid of a stick. Maria gave them a faint wave, the other woman turned and almost immediately turned back and the man ploughed onwards. As a group they made their way slowly up to the open door and Gladys and Cynthia followed in their wake. The sullen grey sky seemed to hover above the church and the gate.
Inside, Maria and her two companions went to the very front and sat down, clustered together like birds in a nest. Gladys and Cynthia took an empty pew near the door. It was five minutes before the service was due to start. Cynthia counted up the number of mourners. There were nineteen in all, including the family group, which she took to be Maria’s daughter and possibly Charlie’s father as well as Maria herself. Some of the others were sitting in pairs, but mostly singly, and they ran the gamut of ages and outfits. Only one stood out—a man, comparatively young with blonde hair and dressed in a black leather jacket, open-necked shirt and jeans. He seemed to be looking around in exactly the same way as Cynthia was. Their eyes met very briefly but he showed no particular interest in the two women. Cynthia whispered in Gladys’s ear. “No sign of Metz,” was her response.
The vicar had just made his appearance when a large broad-shouldered man in a long dark overcoat strode in, accompanied by another equally large in a well-cut but close-fitting suit which showed off a muscular body. “That’s a tough-looking pair,” Gladys murmured.
“Maybe the occupants of the Bentley,” Cynthia whispered back.
The church doors were shut and the service got going. Cynthia kept an eye on the two men who’d come in at the end and on the one she’d caught sight of earlier. All of them followed the service scrupulously, kneeling and standing as required. When it finished the vicar gave a blessing and invited those who wished to join the family in following the coffin to the graveside to assemble outside the side door. As the group moved off, Cynthia noticed that none of the men she’d been watching were there and, as she turned her head, she glimpsed the Bentley moving with extreme care out of the car park.
They were standing at the back of the group watching the coffin being lowered and listening to the vicar intoning: “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes…” when Gladys dug Cynthia in the ribs. “Look over there in the trees,” she said. She inclined her head and Cynthia saw a man in a hooded top. At the same moment he began to move away, following the tree line.
“That looks like Metz,” Gladys went on. “Let’s follow him.”
They detached themselves from the others, who had started throwing lumps of earth and flowers on to the coffin, and walked back towards the front of the church. As they rounded the corner by the tower the man who might have been Metz had disappeared. “Come on,” Gladys urged Cynthia and they quickened their pace. Round the next corner they came into a garden with benches on each side and memorial stones with urns of flowers in front of them. They went on into an area beyond where wildflowers and grass had been allowed run wild and then suddenly stopped. Cynthia was just thinking back to George’s admonition about not taking any risks when she caught her breath as she saw standing in front of them and blocking their way the man in the hooded top. He was now clearly identifiable as Jack Metz from the scar on his cheek. What caught her attention even more was the large knife he was holding, pointed straight at them.
“Why are you following me?” The voice was hoarse and urgent.
“We’re just out walking,” Cynthia ventured.
“You’re following me. I saw you at the grave. Why?” The knife wobbled in his hand.
Gladys took a step forwards. “Are you Jack Metz?” she demanded to know.
“What if I am?”
“We were friends of Charlie’s. He mentioned you.”
“Did he? Why?”
“He said that you told him to take Richard Pennington’s body to Corrington Common. Did you?”
The grip on the knife strengthened. “What do you know about all that? You’re just an old busybody.” The tone became more threatening and Cynthia felt her heart racing. “You should learn to mind your own business.” As he raised his hand and appeared to be debating whether to strike, the fair-haired man in the black leather jacket appeared behind him.
“You shouldn’t be doing this, Jack,” he said in a friendly but controlling way. “It’s not a good idea at all, threatening a pair of elderly ladies at church.” He reached round and grabbed the knife, which Metz gave up without a struggle. Then he took Metz’s arm. “Why don’t you answer the lady’s question? She was nice and polite to you. The least you can do is be the same.”
“That’s a long time ago.” Metz seemed to suddenly become distrait. “I don’t remember too well but I did have the body in my car and handed it over to Charlie. Years later I felt badly about it because he could easily have been caught and then maybe charged with the murder. He was no killer, Charlie. That’s why I’m here today. To…” he struggled for words.
“…show remorse,” the other man suggested.
“That’s right. I wanted to say goodbye to Charlie. I’m not a killer either.” His voice rose as he said the last words.
“So why did you do it?”
“I was ordered by the Grouper. You know the Grouper? You can’t say no.”
“The Grouper’s dead, Jack. He’s not a threat anymore.” He signalled to Gladys from behind Metz’s back. “The lady has another question for you. Nice and polite this time, remember.”
“Where did you collect the body from?” The other man nodded vigorously and smiled.
“It was in London.”
“Where in London?”
Metz scratched his head and looked down as he seemed to make a serious effort to conjure up the details. “I know.” He raised his hand. “It was in Clapham, near Clapham North tube station, a street that runs away from there over the road with side streets off it. It was a house with a garage and the garage was on a slant to the house. Even though there were two of us it made it tricky for loading. The house was in the second or the third side street maybe. I don’t remember.” His voice trailed away.
“Who was the other man with you?”
“I tell you—I don’t remember. I don’t remember.”
“All right, Jack. I’ll take you off with me. Say goodbye to these ladies. Be polite now.”
Jack Metz did as he was bidden. The eyes, which before had been hard and cold, were now dreamy and distant. Gladys and Cynthia stood and watched them go.
**
When DC Ben Gibson arrived back at the office a couple of hours later, his sergeant Andy Croft was waiting for him. “Jack Metz was at the funeral,” Gibson announced. “He didn’t come into the church. He was just watching from the trees, but I caught him afterwards threatening the two women with a knife. He gave it up like a lamb when I asked him. I’m not sure he really knew what he was doing. I was close enough anyway to make sure he couldn’t do anything damaging to them.”
Croft drummed his fingers on the desk top. “Good thing we sent you. Metz is a danger, isn’t he, if he’s going to run around doing that?”
“I brought him in in case you wanted to see him. He admitted he helped transfer Pennington’s body and described the house where it happened. It’ll be in my report.”
“Have you spoken to the daughter?”
Gibson nodded. “She’s coming in to pick him up. She knew he was going to the funeral today but she thought that was safe enough. Obviously she couldn’t have bargained with the women following him and asking questions. She says the Alzheimer’s is at an early stage but he can fly off the handle without warning.”
“Tell her to keep a closer watch on him. If he gets up to anything like this again, we’ll have to charge him and he’ll be going away, probably for good. If the two women make a complaint, we’ll have to charge him anyway. I’ll have a word with George about it so they know their rights.”
“They’re really into the Pennington case.” Gibson recounted the question and answer in the church garden. “And they’re shrewd old birds.”
“With George to help them they’re doing a good job. They got Charlie Willis to talk and now Metz. After George’s tip off about the bank, the FSA are going to do an inspection. They’re getting results.”
“Do you want to follow up on the information from Metz today?”
Croft countered with a question of his own. “Did you ask him who helped him with Pennington’s body?”
“He says he doesn’t remember.”
Croft grimaced. “Or doesn’t want to. He could have just shovelled that memory away. We’ll let the ex-chief superintendent’s taskforce do the legwork. If they find the house, we can evaluate the situation then. Tell Metz’s daughter it’s the last warning. The best advice would be to put him in a secure home now while she still has a choice. I’ll report higher up—you update the file.”
“On the way, boss. Incidentally, where’s George today?”
“Gone to interview Cauley Mortimer, lucky sod.”
“Who’s he?”
Croft shook his head again, this time in wonderment. “You really are too young, aren’t you? He was a fixture in the Welsh football team for quite a while, an ace in front of goal. He was a client of Pennington’s bank and had a dispute with him before he died. He threatened to kill him. Officers interviewed him then with a lawyer but they didn’t take it further. No harm in George seeing him again—it’ll make a nice day out for him! We’ll hear if there’s anything important. Now, you’d better bugger off and deal with Metz. From what you’ve told me I can’t see much point in my seeing him.”
“OK—you’ll be interested to hear that the Grouper Junior turned up at the funeral, plus bodyguard, plus car. He was a model member of the congregation. It made me think he had remorse for Charlie as well.”
“Hm, I’m not sure remorse would feature in Grouper vocabulary. I wonder if he knows about Charlie’s statement and that we have it. Do you think he saw Metz at the service?”
“I don’t see how he can have done, boss. Metz never came in the church. The two women spotted him outside and tailed him. I followed them from a different direction. The Grouper Junior drove off as soon as the service was over.”
“Still, you’d better have a word with the Metz family and Charlie’s sister about security.”
“Will do.”
Gibson was almost at the door when Croft called him back. “Oh and Ben, make sure you get hold of a copy of that magazine when it comes out; Behind the News, it’s called. We can take a look at that article.”
“It’s on order.”
Croft gave him an approving nod. “Good.”