The Stone Wife

Diamond relented enough to give a wink. ‘We’ll manage without her. What’s the real news, then? What have you got to show for a day without me in the office?’

‘Mainly we were getting the background on Monica’s “ex”.’

‘Tell me all.’

‘He’s a huge name in the construction world, as we know, but it’s not your conventional CV. Mr. Bernie Wefers has form.’

‘Violence?’

‘Plenty of it. He spent most of his youth in young offenders’ institutions. Gang stuff, mostly. Shoplifting, leading to robbery with violence — and then absconding from one borstal after another.’

‘Where was he raised?’

‘A council estate in Swindon. A single mum with multiple relationships and four kids. He was the youngest and she’d just about given up by then. He was always in trouble.’

‘Firearms?’

‘Flick knives. The usual pattern, threatening shop-owners and nicking the cigarettes and the contents of the till.’

‘Gangs, you said.’

‘He had his own mob of tearaways from an early age. He was a kid with leadership qualities, without a doubt. Even when he was locked away, he was the main man, organising the scams. There was a riot and a fire at one place and he was definitely the ringleader. The probation officers seemed to give him up as beyond redemption. But then at seventeen, he comes to his senses. He’s learned a trade inside as a bricklayer and he gets employment in Birmingham in the early nineties when there is plenty of construction going on. He disappears from criminal records and just about every other record for ten to twelve years and then he turns up in the south of England as a vehicle owner in Surbiton and the vehicle is a new BMW.’

‘Did all right as a brickie, then.’

‘Suspiciously all right. Nice address, paying his council tax. Nothing worse than a couple of speeding fines. He was changing cars all the time, buying the new models as they came on the market.’

‘Not laying bricks any more, I’ll warrant.’

‘He’d become a contractor. The Wefers name starts getting on vans and lorries. But he isn’t content with that. He starts a private construction company and it takes off in a big way and is floated on the stock market.’

‘And the rest is history. How we all wish we’d bought a slice of it. What’s he doing these days?’

‘Still very active in management. He excels at land deals, identifying prime sites, dealing with the owners and seeing off any objectors.’

‘What with — power drills?’

Halliwell shrugged. ‘Better than that, he has a team of planning experts who run rings round the local authorities. They’re paid almost entirely on commission, and are known in the trade as the piranhas. Even in the leaner years of this century he’s managed to forge ahead of the opposition. His developments always include an element of affordable housing along with the profit-making four- and five-bedroom houses, so he gets the blessing of the government.’

‘In short, he’s got it made.’

Halliwell nodded. ‘Got it made. That wouldn’t be a bad motto for Wefers Construction, unless it’s “concrete the country.” ’

‘Do I detect a note of bitterness?’

‘Only about developers in general. Another lot built a car park over the churchyard where my grandparents were buried. The church was closed and became a pub restaurant and the gravestones have been moved to the boundary and set into a new stone wall as someone’s weird idea of respect for the past. They’re passing it off as the wall of remembrance — as if we ought to be grateful.’

‘That’s sick, Keith. I sympathise. I’d feel the same.’ Diamond let a suitable interval go by before saying, ‘Okay, that’s the business side of Bernie. Instead of nicking cigarettes at knife-point, he grabs land with his piranhas and builds on it. That’s known as channelling your talent. Smart guy. No doubt he’ll end up with a knighthood. Did you get anything on his private life?’

‘Twice divorced, with any number of broken relationships as well. He has no problems attracting the women, but he doesn’t keep them long. If you Google images of him you’ll see him with his arm round any number of women, all different.’

‘Kids?’

‘None that he admits to.’

‘So how does he spend his money?’

‘Cars, holidays abroad, night clubs, racing.’

‘Not a student of fourteenth century poetry, then?’

‘No, but he has a sideline in old carvings.’

Diamond laughed in disbelief. ‘Get away.’

‘I mean it. One of his companies deals in statues and garden ornaments.’

‘A salvage yard?’

‘They have a massive warehouse called Stone Rescue in the London dockland area. The stuff is harvested from all over the country as he buys old property for redevelopment. And then they’re sold at a tidy profit. But I don’t think he’d be in the market for the Wife of Bath unless it was dirt cheap.’