Lost Hours

by Alex Walters

  Zoe turned off the A6 towards Ashford-in-the-Water following the satnav’s directions. It was a glorious day, unusually hot for this late in the year. But then most of the summer had been like that, one long languid day after another. Annie had expected the weather to break as they headed towards autumn, but so far the warm weather had continued. There’d been the usual talk of drought and threatened hosepipe bans, although the reservoirs had remained reasonably full after the previous wet winter.

  Today offered the Peak District at its best. They were in the heart of the National Park, surrounded by low rolling hills, fields and moorland, the landscape seeming almost to glow in the afternoon heat. Some of the leaves were beginning to turn, a scattering of crimson among the greenery.

  ‘So what do we know?’ Zoe asked. ‘I only picked up the tail end of the briefing.’

  ‘Stuart seemed quite exercised by it. It could be a high-profile one. This Michelle Wentworth is a bit of a controversial figure.’

  ‘Saw some TV piece about her a few months back. Made a small fortune taking over outsourcing contracts or something?’

  ‘That’s the one. She doesn’t have a good reputation, though. I looked her up briefly before we came out. Her approach seems to be to undercut the competition to win the contracts, then to squeeze all the profit she can out of it. Lots of talk about the benefits of digitisation and streamlining the back office and other stuff I didn’t really understand, but as far as I could see most of it really amounted to getting rid of as many employees as possible and sticking the rest on zero-hours contracts.’

  ‘Has she ever had any criminal charges?’

  ‘No, but she seems to pull every legal trick in the book to achieve what she wants.’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘I suppose she’s not the only one who’s behaved like that. She probably just gets disproportionate coverage because she’s a successful woman. And the sort of woman that the tabloids can happily feature on their front pages, if you get my drift.’

  Zoe had slowed now, the satnav indicating that they were approaching their destination. ‘She seems to have picked the right place to live, too. This is pretty spectacular.’

  They’d turned off the main road on to a single-track lane that led gradually uphill, with the land falling away to open fields and then moorland to their left. Annie could see the River Wye sparkling in the afternoon sun before the land began to rise again to the darker hills beyond. The right-hand side of the road was bounded by a large stone wall, which Annie guessed marked the edge of Michelle Wentworth’s land.

  Sure enough, after another hundred metres or so, they rounded a turn in the road and Annie spotted a large pair of wrought-iron gates set in a stone archway. ‘I’m guessing that’s the place. Even the entrance is ostentatious.’

  A brass plaque on the archway confirmed that this was indeed the address they’d been given. The gates were standing open, and Zoe signalled and turned in.

  The area beyond was largely given over to lawn, with a gravel drive winding down to the house in front of them. It was an impressive space with a line of trees and the stone wall marking the boundary to their right and the garden backing on to moorland beyond the house.

  The house itself was almost a disappointment in the midst of this impressive setting. Annie had half-expected a Victorian or Edwardian manor house – there were a few scattered about the region, typically built by self-made business types in the nineteenth century. But this wasn’t one of those. Annie guessed that these had once been farm cottages, a row of smaller residences now transformed into one substantial building. It was clear that a lot of money had been spent on the reconstruction. The most striking aspect was a large vaulted roof that soared above the ridge height of the surrounding building, creating a dramatic contrast to the gently rolling moors and hills beyond. The old stone walls of the house were lined with Virginia creeper, just beginning to redden.

  Beside her, Zoe gave a low whistle. ‘Nice place.’

  ‘You can see she’s not short of a bob or two.’

  In front of the house, the gravel driveway opened into a parking area, now occupied by two marked cars, the CSIs’ vans and three other vehicles, presumably belonging to Wentworth and her family. A crime-scene tent had been erected close to the house between the cars that Annie guessed were Michelle Wentworth’s and her son’s. From the short briefing she’d received, Annie understood that the body had been found there.

  ‘The victim’s her son?’ Zoe said as they made their way along the drive.

  ‘That’s what I was told. All seems a bit odd. Wentworth was out at the back sunbathing. Son went to get her a drink, apparently. He didn’t come back so she went to look for him, and found him on the ground out here. Looked as if he’d been struck a hefty blow on the head with some kind of blunt instrument, probably more than once.’

  ‘And this was just out of the blue?’

  ‘That’s what she reckons,’ Annie confirmed.

  ‘Sounds a bit odd. In a place like this in broad daylight. Not exactly the place for a mugging.’

  ‘Quite. And it sounds like more than a mugging. If he was hit more than once, that suggests whoever did it wanted to finish the job.’ Annie shrugged. ‘No point in speculating. Let’s go and find out.’

  Zoe pulled up behind the marked cars and they climbed out into the sunshine. After the car’s air conditioning, the heat was almost stifling, though there was a light breeze blowing in from the moors. There was a faint scent of woodsmoke in the air, perhaps from a distant barbecue or bonfire.

  The area beyond the cars had been marked off with police tape and, as they climbed out of the car, a uniformed officer hurried over to greet them. Annie recognised him as Paul Burbage, a fairly young, enthusiastic officer who she knew to be both capable and sensitive in his dealings with the public. ‘Afternoon, Paul,’ she said. ‘Decent afternoon for it, at least.’

  ‘I can think of things I’d rather be doing on a day like this,’ Burbage said.

  ‘What’s the story?’

  Burbage gestured behind him. ‘Body was found over there. Mother came out looking for him and found him lying between the two cars. Really nasty head wound, apparently. Looks as if he’d been struck several times.’

  Annie exchanged a look with Zoe. ‘Sounds like someone wanted to do a thorough job.’

  ‘Sounds that way, doesn’t it?’ Burbage agreed. ‘Horrible business, anyway. The mother had already seen the wound so she knew it wasn’t an accident, so we were called along with the ambulance.’

  Looking beyond Burbage, Annie saw that Danny Eccles, one of the senior CSIs, had emerged from the tent, still clad in his white suit. He waved to her and made his way over, removing his helmet as he did so. ‘Afternoon, Annie. Zoe. You’ve drawn the short straw then?’

  ‘Looks like it. Seems a strange one.’

  ‘Strange to happen in a place like this, certainly.’ Eccles was a rotund man with a mop of curly hair, capable of maintaining a cheery demeanour in the face of almost any kind of crime scene. ‘Looks like it was targeted.’

  ‘Targeted?’

  ‘In the sense that it doesn’t look just like some kind of opportunistic killing. If he’d – I don’t know – got into a fight with someone or interrupted a potential intruder, they might have struck the first blow, but I can’t see why they’d have stuck around to deliver three or four more.’ He took a breath. ‘He was clubbed to death. Somebody really wanted to make sure the job was done.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Annie looked around her. The bucolic scene suddenly felt much less cosy, and she felt a chill despite the heat of the day.

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Anything else so far?’ Annie asked. ‘What about a murder weapon?’

  ‘There’s nothing immediately to hand,’ Eccles said. ‘It would have to have been something pretty solid and heavy, but not too large. A hammer or something of that kind. There may be traces left in the wound, but there’s nothing obvious. Not much else yet.’ />
  ‘How old was he?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘Just nineteen, apparently,’ Eccles said. ‘A student. He was back here for the summer.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ Annie said. ‘And his poor mum.’ She paused. ‘Assuming she wasn’t responsible for this, of course.’

  ‘You think she might be?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘I guess we can’t discount it. Always look at family first. We’ve known stranger things.’ She turned to Eccles. ‘You think a woman could have done this?’

  ‘It’s possible. The murder weapon would have had to be something pretty solid, but I don’t think that precludes the possibility of it being wielded by a female. His own mother, though…’

  ‘Like I say, we’ve known stranger things. She’s got to be on the list till we prove otherwise. Is she inside?’

  Burbage nodded. ‘She is. She’s got some man with her.’

  ‘Some man?’

  ‘Yes, he was here when we arrived. A friend of hers. She said she’d called him for moral support after she’d called us.’

  ‘I can see you wouldn’t want to be here on your own after this,’ Annie said. ‘Good that she had somebody close at hand, I suppose.’

  ‘I hear that slightly sceptical note in your voice,’ Zoe said.

  ‘You know me too well, Zo. Just seems convenient she had someone she could call on so quickly. We’re sure he only came after she found the body?’

  ‘Pretty sure, actually,’ Burbage said. ‘He must have arrived just before us. When we were coming up the drive he was just parking his car. It’s the dark green Jag at the end there.’

  ‘Well spotted, Paul,’ Annie said with a smile. ‘So at least we’re fairly sure he wasn’t here all along.’ She looked up, her eyes scanning the facade of the building. ‘Is there any CCTV?’

  ‘There’s a security camera there,’ Burbage said. ‘Don’t know if it’s operational. If it is, there’ll presumably be others around the place.’

  ‘Something for us to check out, anyway. You think Mrs Wentworth’s up to talking to us?’

  ‘She seemed pretty calm,’ Burbage said. ‘Upset but not hysterical. She gave us a pretty clear explanation of what had happened when we arrived.’

  Annie turned back to Zoe. ‘Okay, let’s go and see what we can find out. We’ll leave you to get on with it, Danny.’

  ‘You do that,’ Eccles said. ‘I only came out for a breath of air. Trust me, this is not the day to be stuck inside a tent with a dead body.’

  ‘You know what,’ Annie said, ‘on that subject, I’m only too happy to take your word for it.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘You were a witness to this, Ms Pearson?’

  Sheena sighed. She could tell the police officer was feeling out of his depth and keen to extricate himself from the situation he’d been landed in. For her own part, she was reluctant to become involved in what was in danger of becoming a controversial incident. As it was, she’d probably be criticised by some of her fellow MPs even for showing her face here. Many of them remained unwilling to be too visible in their support for this kind of cause, worrying that it would be perceived as ‘anti-business’. Sheena’s view was that it was fine to be pro-business, as long as business behaved ethically towards the employees it relied upon. Too often, as here, the well-being of the employees seemed to be secondary to the drive for profits. Even so, she couldn’t defend what had clearly been a criminal act.

  Roger Pallance had made good on his threat to call the police, and a car had duly arrived half an hour later bearing two officers. Sheena guessed they’d probably been told to come out because of the profile of the strike, rather than because they were taking Pallance’s complaint particularly seriously.

  That wasn’t really the point, she acknowledged. Pallance, the site manager, was an arrogant so-and-so looking for an excuse to cause trouble, but the reality was he’d been given one. Someone had thrown a potentially dangerous object, and the damage could easily have been more serious.

  The picket line had already been in place when he’d arrived in his sleek grey BMW. She’d been told he’d made a similarly staged entrance every day since the strike had been called, sounding his horn as he cruised past the assembled group to park in his designated space near the entrance to the building.

  He was in his late thirties or early forties, a tall, good-looking man with close-cropped fair hair. He was dressed semi-formally, with no jacket and an open-necked business shirt. His relaxed demeanour had suggested he felt no unease at braving the picket line.

  He’d reached back into the car and pulled out a laptop bag, which he slung over his shoulder. Then he’d strode towards them, nodding and smiling at the assembled group, apparently oblivious to the comments directed back at him.

  ‘Morning,’ he’d said to Keith Chalmers, the trade union representative. ‘All still here then?’

  ‘Aye,’ Chalmers had said. ‘And we’ll be here for a good while yet, if you lot don’t start talking to us.’

  ‘We’ll talk to you as soon as you stop this nonsense. We’re not going to be held to ransom.’ He’d turned to Sheena and smiled. ‘Ms Pearson. Good to see you here, though I’m surprised you’ve decided to lend your reputation to this dubious cause.’

  Sheena hadn’t known whether he really had recognised her or whether he’d been briefed about her presence here today. Quite possibly the latter. She’d spoken to various local journalists about her intention of visiting the picket line, in the hope that it would receive some coverage in the local media later in the day. She and Chalmers had given a short interview to a TV crew earlier, which would presumably be on the local news at lunchtime.

  ‘I won’t regret supporting my constituents in seeking fair treatment, Mr Pallance.’

  ‘If we remove these jobs from your constituency, you may find you’re not so popular. I believe your majority is wafer-thin, even now.’

  That wasn’t quite true. Her majority had reduced at the previous General Election, although less than the national swing against the party. She couldn’t afford to be complacent, but she knew she was building a good reputation as a constituency MP. ‘My primary concern is to stand up for what I believe in. And one of those is the basic principle of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.’

  ‘Which we provide, I think you’ll find.’

  ‘As things stand, you pay the minimum wage. You want to move your staff to contracts that offer no guaranteed hours. Which means that in practice even fewer of them will be able to live on what you pay them.’

  ‘Many people enjoy the freedom offered by flexible contracts,’ Pallance had said.

  ‘In that case, they can volunteer for them,’ Sheena had countered. ‘You’re offering people no choice.’

  ‘With respect, Ms Pearson, I’m not sure you really understand the realities of business.’

  She’d been about to respond to what she saw as patronising nonsense when Pallance had suddenly stumbled forward, almost falling on to her. ‘Shit! What the hell…?’

  At first, Sheena had been unclear what had happened. Her own thoughts had fled back to the incident the previous year when she’d been the victim of an apparently random shooting in the midst of a very different kind of protest. That had been the start of a series of events that had left her seriously traumatised and, for a period, unable to perform her constituency duties. After extensive counselling, she’d thought she’d finally put the trauma behind her, but in the previous moment she’d immediately found herself back there.

  What had happened here was less serious than that, though it was troubling enough. Looking behind Pallance, she’d seen a scattered pile of broken brown glass on the tarmac. Someone at the back of the crowd had thrown an empty bottle at Pallance’s head.

  Keith Chalmers had been understandably furious, and had berated the group at some length, pointing out that whoever had done this had played right into the company’s hands. ‘This is going to be all over the media tonight and all over the tabloids tom
orrow. It makes us look like irresponsible thugs. We’ve just risked throwing away all the goodwill we’ve built up over the last few weeks. Just for one moment of idiocy!’

  Most had appeared to agree with him, and, in response to his demand, no one had been prepared to step forward and admit to being responsible. Some of the younger men at the rear of the group looked uncomfortable, but when Chalmers had challenged them they’d denied all knowledge.

  ‘Someone must have seen who did it,’ Chalmers said. ‘But to be honest I don’t much care. I just want you to know that if anything like this happens again, I won’t be prepared to stand up for you.’

  Sheena had heard one of the young men at the rear of the group mutter a derogatory comment about the union not being much cop anyway, but whoever it was had been immediately silenced by those around him. Chalmers had glared at him and then turned back to the rest of the picket line. ‘The point is,’ he said, ‘we can win this. But we can only do it by being disciplined, by making the best of the resources we have. And by not handing this kind of gift to the other side.’

  When the police had turned up, after entering the building to speak to Roger Pallance, they’d eventually emerged and gone through a similar routine. They’d clearly realised straight away that there would be little mileage in trying to identify the culprit if no one was prepared to admit to having witnessed the action. After a few moments, they’d taken Sheena and Keith Chalmers aside to talk to them privately.

  ‘I saw the outcome,’ Sheena said, in response to the police officer’s opening question. ‘But my attention was on Mr Pallance. I didn’t even know what had happened at first. Not until I saw the broken bottle on the ground.’

  ‘Neither of you have any idea who was responsible?’