Free Skeleton Plot by J. M. Gregson Page A

with a girl who was hooked on drugs? They can be very irrational, girls like that. Quite unreasonable.’
    ‘Look, I know what you’re about here because you’ve virtually told me. I didn’t kill a druggie or any other girl. And if I had, I wouldn’t have buried her here. Don’t shit on your own doorstep. That’s the expression, isn’t it?’
    Lambert came in now as he heard the man’s voice rising. He said calmly, ‘You might have had no alternative, if you wished to dispose of a body quickly. If you hadn’t meant to kill her but had hit her a little too hard with a blunt instrument, for example. In those circumstances, you’d have had to conceal the remains as swiftly as possible, which would probably have meant locally. The furthest point of the farmland might have seemed to you an excellent place to dispose of a corpse. After all, it’s taken around twenty years to expose the skeleton, and it might well have taken much longer.’
    Jim Simmons nodded slowly, accepting the logic of this. Then his face brightened. ‘But if I’d buried a body there, I wouldn’t have sold the land on, would I?’
    ‘Probably not. But our information is that you’d sold two other plots for handsome sums before you sold the neighbouring plot to the Jacksons, who were the last people to move in at the end of the building development. It would have been difficult to refuse what Joe Jackson was offering you for a fifth of an acre of pasture land, wouldn’t it? Everyone knew the sum was far more than the land was worth to you. And you’d already sold two similar plots for less than what Joe was offering. You couldn’t have refused his offer without exciting suspicion, which was the last thing you would have wished to do. And had those bones been lying just a fraction deeper, they would never have been disturbed. It was only because a young man was doing very enthusiastic double digging that he turned up the skull. You could say that you were very unlucky.’
    ‘No! You could say that the person who put that body there was very unlucky. I had nothing to do with that death and nothing to do with that burial.’
    Lambert stared at him for five long seconds, assessing the man as much as his statement. Then he said tersely, ‘Very well. You will understand that we cannot simply accept what you say at face value, in these circumstances. We need to establish the innocence of everyone who was around here at that time. We shall know many more details of the death in the next few days, and we may then need to question you again, Mr Simmons. In the meantime, we need the names from you of other people who were regularly around this farm twenty years or so ago. Particularly young men or women who might have associated with a girl who was around your age at that time.’
    ‘There aren’t any. Not that I can pinpoint for you. I’m no longer in touch with anyone who was around here at that time. My life has changed and so has theirs. They’re not around here any more.’
    ‘Nevertheless, we need to contact them and eliminate them from this inquiry. Give some thought to the matter, please. You will see that it is very much in your own interest to give us the names of people who may have been around then and who left the area shortly afterwards. They may have had good reason to leave quickly. Just as you have good reason to recall them and everything you can remember about them and deliver it to us. Here is my card. Ring this number at any time and someone will take the details of whatever you are able to tell us. Good day to you, Mr Simmons.’
    It was Hook who drove the police Focus carefully down the track to the farm entrance and the lane beyond it. He had a sense that Lambert was planning to say something, but he had too much experience of the man to hurry him. The Chief Superintendent was too old now to change his ways, too respected by his team to be hurried.
    Eventually John Lambert said unexpectedly, ‘What did you think of the