Buried Read online

  Lynda La Plante was born in Liverpool. She trained for the stage at RADA and worked with the National Theatre and RDC before becoming a television actress. She then turned to writing and made her breakthrough with the phenomenally successful TV series Widows. She has written over thirty international novels, all of which have been bestsellers, and is the creator of the Anna Travis, Lorraine Page and Trial and Retribution series. Her original script for the much-acclaimed Prime Suspect won awards from BAFTA, Emmy, British Broadcasting and Royal Television Society, as well as the 1993 Edgar Allan Poe Award.

  Lynda is one of only three screenwriters to have been made an honorary fellow of the British Film Institute and was awarded the BAFTA Dennis Potter Best Writer Award in 2000. In 2008, she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to Literature, Drama and Charity.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © La Plante Global Limited, 2020

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by Bonnier Books UK

  Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

  Author photograph © Monty Farber

  First published in the United States of America in 2020 by Zaffre

  Zaffre is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

  This ebook was produced by Scribe Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-4998-6242-3

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4998-6243-0

  Canadian paperback ISBN: 978-1-4998-6244-7

  For information, contact

  251 Park Avenue South, Floor 12, New York, New York 10010

  www.bonnierbooks.co.uk

  BURIED is dedicated to Variety, the Children’s Charity.

  Before you read the book, please do take a look at the wonderful work they do at www.variety.org.uk.

  I’m very proud to be one of their ambassadors and to give my support to them.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Acknowledgments

  Readers’ Club

  A message from Lynda La Plante . . .

  Prologue

  1994

  In the soft light of the flickering candles, the room looked like a film set: five women enjoying a celebration dinner. As the clumsy maid leaned in to overfill her glass, no one caught the strange glint behind the watchful eyes of the guest of honor. Smiling and nodding graciously, she seemed to be enjoying every moment of this strange, unexpected reunion. In reality she was waiting. She knew they wanted something and on this, her first night out of prison, Dolly Rawlins’ suspicious mind was in overdrive.

  She had not expected anyone to meet her when she left Holloway that morning, but a black Mercedes had been waiting outside the main entrance. As the chauffeur opened the door, he had handed her an invitation to join “friends” for dinner at The Grange, a large manor house. It had been handwritten by Ester Freeman, who had briefly been in the same cell block as Dolly, so, against her better judgment, Dolly had got in the car. After all, she had nowhere else to go.

  As the car pulled up on the graveled driveway, the outside of The Grange was in darkness, while the inside exuded a welcoming glow. It looked warm, inviting. Typical Ester, thought Dolly, to reach for dramatic effect. As she headed for the front door, she realized it was intended to distract from just how dilapidated the mansion actually was. Typical Ester, indeed!

  The door was opened by a young girl dressed as a maid and, behind her, theatrically poised at the foot of the sweeping staircase, stood the glamorous Ester Freeman.

  “Darling!” Ester exclaimed in her husky voice, opening her arms wide. “A few old friends, indebted to your kindness, have gathered to celebrate your freedom.”

  She turned to the maid.

  “Angela, tell the others our guest has arrived. Dolly—” she turned back to Dolly—“come with me . . .”

  Upstairs, in the candlelit master bedroom, a stunning velvet gown hung on the outside of the wardrobe door, draped with an accompanying shawl. On the dressing table was an array of paraphernalia relating to hair and make-up; a dressing gown was laid on the bed. In the adjoining room a bath was already drawn.

  Ester handed Dolly a glass of champagne.

  “No rush, Dolly. You have all the time in the world now.”

  An hour later, Dolly was seated at a large dining table boasting a banquet of meats and vegetables, breads and sauces, and enough wine to keep them all happy for days. Once again, the dim lighting did its magic. The blazing fire and a bank of candles on the mantel and the grand piano made the run-down room look fabulous.

  As the maid worked her way around the table, pouring the delicious chilled wine, Dolly took a moment to look round at the “friends” who had gathered for this welcome dinner.

  At the far end of the table sat Ester Freeman, seductively touching the rim of her champagne glass to the glass of the woman sitting beside her. “Any port in a storm,” thought Dolly. Ester was the sort of prisoner who set her sights on a suitable sex toy within seconds of being booked in. Her latest conquest was Julia Lawson, who had also been in Holloway. Julia was a doctor, imprisoned for prescription fraud. She was also, Dolly knew, a heroin addict.

  On Dolly’s right was Gloria Radford, another former inmate. Loud and uncouth, she was dressed tonight in a tight mock leopard-skin dress and was midway through telling a dirty joke, screeching across the table to Kathleen O’Reilly in a coarse voice. Kathleen was overweight, in her mid-forties, and, as far as Dolly could recall, had been convicted of fraud. Her long hair was tied back unfashionably and her crumpled satin blouse was scattered with food stains and bursting under the pressure of her ample breasts.

  Lastly, Dolly’s eyes fell on the very pretty woman sitting to her left. Dolly recognized her face, but she couldn’t remember what Connie Stevens had been in for, although she did recall that she had always been in tears, claiming to be totally innocent. Connie was very curvaceous, her bleached blonde hair reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe, and she had perfected the movie star’s sultry pout. Dolly guessed prostitution.

  As Gloria finished her dirty joke, everyone laughed a little too loudly. In the silence that followed, Ester raised her glass to th
eir guest of honor and the others followed, looking at her expectantly. Dolly looked round the table and smiled. She had no idea what they wanted, but she could wait. She was used to waiting.

  Chapter 1

  Present day

  Rose Cottage had been empty for eight months. It was a neat, two-story white stone building with thick, black wooden lintels above the central front door and each of the five small windows—three up, two down. On the more sheltered west side of the front wall, the ivy had completely taken over and was lifting the slates from the roof, but on the exposed east side, the stonework was bare and had been flattened by centuries of strong winter winds swirling down from the hills. From some angles the cottage looked as though it was leaning to the left.

  As the cottage was rural, with stables and a hay barn, the land surrounding it had been fairly unkempt even before it was left empty, but a small area directly outside the front door had been landscaped into narrow, winding footpaths circling rose beds. The wild roses, left to their own devices, were still fighting against the changing seasons, but today they looked particularly beautiful. In fact, they were the only real reminder of how lovely the cottage had once been.

  Inside, the furniture had been moved into the center of the room, just in front of the hearth. A heavy wooden chest of drawers and two bookshelves surrounded a two-seater horsehair sofa, which had four side tables piled high on top of it. Some of the books from the bookshelves had been forced into the gaps of this makeshift bonfire, and the rest had been thrown into the hearth on top of a huge stack of paper.

  Suddenly, the small downstairs windows to the left and right of the front door exploded under the immense pressure from the heat inside, sending glass and wood showering into the rose beds. Flames quickly took hold of the wooden lintels and, within seconds, smoke had blackened the white stone wall.

  The small room was soon consumed by flames, which rose to the ceiling beams and traveled to the wooden staircase and up the stairs. They eventually pushed their way out between the slates from the wooden ceiling beams beneath, and it wasn’t long before a spark leapt across to the hay barn, still full of bales of hay for horses long gone. The barn went up like a Roman candle and, from that point onward, there was no stopping the fire.

  A quarter of a mile away, in a small housing estate, the first of the 999 calls was made. Neighbors watched as dark brown smoke billowed into the clear blue sky. When the house had been occupied, the smoke from the chimney had always been the expected wispy light gray, but this was different. It looked heavy and rancid, and just kept coming.

  Speculation was rife as to how the fire had started. Was it a tramp trying to keep warm? Was it kids taking their games too far?

  Fourteen 999 calls were made in total, sending two fire engines racing toward Rose Cottage from Aylesbury Fire Station. By the time they arrived, the interior of the cottage had almost gone and the hay barn was a pile of rubble and ashes. However, the stables, which were furthest away from the cottage, were still fully ablaze.

  When the fire brigade arrived, they split into two teams—one to tackle the fire inside, and a second to the stables to prevent the flames from jumping to the woodland beyond. It was easier to gain control of the stables because, once the wooden frames had gone, there was nothing left to fuel the fire. The interior of the cottage, however, kept re-igniting as the fire found new fuel on the upper floors and from the wooden roof beams. It didn’t take much to give the flames a new lease of life.

  By nightfall, the grounds resembled a muddy swamp and the rose beds had been completely destroyed by hours of heavy fire boots. What was left of the furniture had been thrown into the front garden, to avoid further re-ignition inside the property, so the once beautiful rose garden looked like a garbage dump.

  “Stop!” the sub-officer shouted as he emerged through the hole that used to be the front door. “Nobody goes back inside!”

  He reached for his phone and dialed Sally Bown. It was late and the phone rang for quite some time before it was finally answered.

  “Sal, this one’s for you. We’ve got a body.”

  Fire Investigation Officer Sally Bown arrived at the scene at eleven o’clock. From the neck down, she was kitted out in her well-worn fire officer’s uniform, but from the neck up, she was immaculate. Her long brown hair was in a loose, low braided bun, held in place by an antique hairpin of white beads and silver leaves, and her light make-up enhanced her natural beauty. The whole crew fancied her on an average day, so her arrival was definitely making their arduous night better. She didn’t mind. They respected her position, so them watching her arse every now and then didn’t bother her in the slightest.

  “It’s way better than men not watching my arse,” was her response to any woman who objected to the glib sexism that came from the male firefighters. And Sally looked at them, too, so she thought it only fair.

  At Sally’s side was a child of a SOCO with puffy eyes and bed hair. He carried a case almost as big as himself, and he stuck to her like glue. He wasn’t quite used to shift work yet, but if he’d been called by Sally Bown, then he was good at his job. He’d learn the rest.

  In the lounge of Rose Cottage, the pile of heavy wooden furniture was now destroyed. The brass hinges and handles from the chest of drawers lay on the floor just in front of the hearth and, on the obliterated sofa, part-melted into the springs, lay a dead body, charred and blackened beyond recognition.

  “Jesus,” muttered Sally as she got out her camera and filmed the scene, starting at the front door and moving methodically toward the center of the lounge and the dead body. Her young SOCO waited outside until instructed to do otherwise.

  “Sally, stop!” Sub shouted. She stopped dead. Sub was a man of very few words and everyone who worked with him knew that he only spoke when he had something important to say. “Retrace your steps, Sal. Now. Please.”

  Sally started walking backward, toe to heel, following exactly the same path as she’d taken to come in.

  There was a deafening crack from directly above Sally’s head. A hand grabbed her belt and she flew backward with the force of a recoiling bungee rope, to be caught by Sub’s waiting arms. Once he had a firm hold on her, he fell backward onto the floor, taking Sally with him. In the next split second an iron bed frame dropped through the air and landed right where she had been standing. A cloud of ash and debris flew upward and took an age to come back down. When visibility returned, Sub was still on the floor, Sally held between his legs, his arms gripping her tightly round the waist. The two legs of the bed that were closest to them had smashed deep holes through the lounge floorboards, and the other two were straddling the remains of the sofa and the charred body, which was still, miraculously, in one piece.

  Sub momentarily tightened his grip around Sally’s waist before letting go. That tiny squeeze reassured her that she was safe. As she gripped Sub’s raised knees to lever herself to her feet, and he eased her forward with his hands politely in the small of her back, she couldn’t help thinking what a massive shame it was that he looked so like her dad.

  When he arrived on the scene, Detective Inspector Martin Prescott was frustrated to be held back from entering Rose Cottage until the risk assessment had been done. He couldn’t imagine three more infuriating words in the English language than “risk fucking assessment.”

  Prescott had been senior officer to Sally Bown’s older sister for more than twenty years, and the families were close. This was not unusual for rural Aylesbury, or for the local emergency services. Sally knew he’d be impatient so, while the fragile ceiling and crumbling walls were made safe, she kept him occupied by showing him the video footage of the interior.

  “At first we thought he could be a vagrant,” Sally told Prescott.

  “He?”

  Prescott smiled as he corrected Sally’s assumption. It was clear from the video that there was no way of knowing the gender of the charred remains at this point. Prescott made Sally smile without even trying. She thought his
thick Yorkshire accent made him sound happy, even when they were disagreeing with each other.

  “Sorry,” Sally corrected herself. “We initially thought that the body could be that of a vagrant unlucky enough to have set fire to themselves after lighting candles to keep warm. There’s no electricity in the cottage, and we found several tea lights scattered around the lounge—on the mantelpiece and in the hearth—but when I looked more closely at the debris on the floor directly next to the sofa, it looked like the furniture had been piled up around him. I mean, around the body.”

  “So, the body was there first?”

  “That’s for you to decide, Martin.”

  “Accelerant?”

  “Undetermined as yet.”

  Prescott was disappointed when the video footage ended.

  “That all you got?”

  Sally started to play a second video, which began by showing the iron bed frame sitting squarely astride the sofa. Prescott closed his eyes and sighed heavily at the sight of his crime scene buried under a double bed. The quiet breath he exhaled formed the words “Fuck me!”

  Prescott took a moment to gather his thoughts. When he was thinking, his eyes flicked from side to side as though he were seeing the various scenarios flashing past inside his head. He appeared to be a very laid-back man, but there was an intensity bubbling away underneath the surface. Mildly dyslexic, soon after joining the force he had made the decision never to write anything down in public. Instead, he’d decided he would remember everything, and in a brain that full, it could sometimes take a little longer to process what he was seeing. Although he hid his intellect under Northern glibness, Prescott was a clever man, and it was always worth waiting for him.

  “Right, well, you know the rules, Sal. It’s a suspicious death, so I have to assume murder till the evidence tells me otherwise.” He walked away from Sally before she could reply and headed for the cottage to see if he could at least peek in through where the window had once been. “And if it’s murder, then I’m wasting valuable time standing out here doing naff all!”