by Adam Melrose
‘Yes, I think it is, because of what we had stolen during that break in.’
Matt was also quickening his replies. He had a bad feeling about where this was going, and he wanted to get to the punch line as quickly as possible.
‘Please Mr Collins, tell us; what was stolen?’
Mr Collins was milking his attention for every last drop.
‘You’ll never believe it; you just won’t.’ He then noticed a sudden lack of smiles across the faces of his captive audience. Something told him he should probably get to the point.
‘Our concrete staircase by the water.’
‘What?’
The confusion on Bruno’s face spoke for the whole team.
Mr Collins was beginning to get the feeling that he was going to push his solo performance too far. He decided a concise summary may keep his audience grateful. Pointing towards the closest reed bed he spoke, ‘Over there beside that reed bed below the cliffs, there was a set of concrete steps that went down into the water. The owner of this quarry uses it on occasion with his family and has a boat. He had the steps put in so that they could get in and out of the water that way, rather than scrambling up the banks in the mud. Well they’ve been stolen. Stupid I know but there we are, they’ve been stolen.’
‘Can you give us a brief description of how the steps were constructed Mr Collins?’ asked Ava.
‘Sure, it was a concrete set of steps that sank half in and half out of the water. The top three steps were out of the water, and the bottom three steps were in the water. The top step was much longer than the others, so it produced a sort of concrete platform heading back from the water towards the cliff. It just meant you could walk from the grass embankment onto the top step and down into the water, avoiding the muddy section of the bank.’
Ava made some notes, ‘And how were the steps fixed in place?’
‘They had four metal feet under the steps that were all under the water level and sunk into the bank.’
‘Thanks Mr Collins.’
Matt’s voice was becoming more earnest.
‘Did you report this to the police?’
‘Yes I did as it happens, it took me a while to get them to take it seriously, but they did come and have a look. They couldn’t find any evidence of how the steps were removed from the site and again, the padlock on the gates had not been cut off. The younger copper said he reckoned they were lifted by helicopter. It was at that point I realised they weren’t taking it seriously. I told the boss and he said just to leave it.’
‘Hmm yeah I can see that. Sorry Mr Collins do you mind if we have a moment?’
‘No of course not, I’ll just wait over here.’ Mr Collins took a few steps away.
‘Thanks.’
Matt beckoned everyone around and spoke in a hushed tone.
‘Is anyone else here thinking what I am thinking?’
Joe nodded first, ‘You’re thinking the steps went down, not up.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m thinking. Here’s the plan. Ava can you and one other bring the cars up here. Then decide which two people are going into the water. Get hold of the underwater portable radar from the car; let’s see if we can locate these missing steps. I’ll go and see if Mr Collins can get his boss on the phone and secure us permission to enter the water.’
‘Then can someone get on the phone to the pathologist and confirm there was a match found between the concrete on the steps and the concrete in Peter Stone’s wounds. Also; ask him if we can email him a close-up photo of the concrete on the steps, would he or one of his team have a quick look and see if there is any obvious discrepancy between our sample from today and theirs from the time of the investigation.’
Matt left the team to their discussions and walked towards Mr Collins.
‘Mr Collins, is there any chance you can get your boss on the phone for me right now?’
Within two hours, permission had been secured to enter the water, the equipment had been brought from the cars, and Bruno and Norton were in their diving gear. They were ready to enter the flooded quarry and begin searching for the missing steps. Contact had been successful with Dr Brett the pathologist. He confirmed that they had matched a sample from the concrete steps to the concrete in Pete’s fatal head wound. He also explained that he remembered something about one of the concrete samples apparently going missing, but it had just been misplaced. He had also confirmed that they could have a preliminary look via photo under magnification, and if there was enough of a difference in the concrete, he would be able to tell today.
Everyone waited for Bruno and Norton to complete the sweep of the section of the quarry floor that they had mapped out. Matt’s hunch was the steps wouldn’t be far away given their size as described by Mr Collins, and hopefully not in the much deeper water.
Soon Bruno and Norton were out of the water and sitting on the bank. They were uploading the printout from the portable radar unit that they had on loan from the labs at Refract Speech. The steps had not been very far down, so they had also managed some photos and had found what Matt expected. The steps had been deliberately destroyed. It turned out that they had been built very cheaply, which was not surprising as they were only there for occasional family use. Someone had cut through all four of the legs, with what had to be some form of underwater heavy-duty kit given all four metal legs were always under water.
There was enough mobile phone signal to send the pictures to Dr Brett and await his reply. It was now past three p.m. and they had done all they could here. They decided to pack up, thank Mr Collins, head to their hotel and check in.
They dropped Mr Collins off by the gates at the edge of the main road. Ava grabbed a bottle of malt whisky from the boot of the car and handed it to Mr Collins. He was genuinely delighted.
‘Glenmorangie, that’s my favourite drink, but I don’t have it too often. Thank you.’
Ava smiled back, ‘No Mr Collins, thank you, your help has been invaluable today. If you ever think of anything else, or want to ask anything, you have my number.’
They made their goodbyes and with everyone on-board, the cars began to roll towards the main road. As they did so Mr Collins came back towards them. He seemed to have something he wanted to say before they parted ways.
‘Please solve this for his wife; the dead man’s I mean. I have hated seeing her so upset and consumed with grief. She seems like a lovely person, this is all such a shame. Closure would really help her I think. Good luck.’
Mr Collins tapped his hands twice on the open window ledge of the front passenger door and turned to walk away. As he did so, Norton lowered the rear passenger window and partially lent his head out.
‘She hasn’t been here in ages though?’
Mr Collins stopped his departure and turned. He looked sad for the first time that day.
‘She was here yesterday afternoon I’m afraid. She didn’t see me, but I saw her. I just left her to her grief.’
Norton was still leaning out of the window.
‘You’re sure? You’re sure it was her… Bella Stone?’
There was a slow nod from Mr Collins.
‘I am. It was the red hair that I recognised; and I know of no one else who wears different coloured trainers – it was her alright.’
Mr Collins began to turn away from them and as he did so he began to slowly raise his right arm as a goodbye salute, the left hand still holding the whisky. The cars rolled out of the entrance, the crunch of gravel giving way to the softer sound of rubber turning steadily on tarmac. A palpable hush filled both vehicles for the short journey to their hotel. The same thoughts were in all six of the team’s minds.
Should they have gone anywhere near this case? It was the first day on the case and already they had discovered their client had lied to them.
Chapter 6
The hotel sat on the edge of a beautiful lake. All the buildings were wooden in construction and had an American lodge hotel feel to them. It was very comfortable and every
one was welcoming. By chance there was a small wing at one end that had seven bedrooms along one corridor with a locking outer door to the rest of the hotel. Ava had been able to secure all the rooms, and exclusive use of the corridor. The code had been changed and they each had a key. They would not be troubled by other guests. The seventh room, a large suite with balcony was made into the Operations Room.
Everyone had been quiet. They had all unpacked, showered and were just meeting up in the newly renamed Operations Room. Matt was getting everyone a drink. Although the mood inside was sombre, the late afternoon outside was warm and pleasant. The wide balcony doors were fully open, and a warm summer breeze was blowing in across the room, gently lifting the curtains.
Matt suggested they had an hour or so to discuss their thoughts and where they wanted to go next with this investigation; then they could go down and enjoy a pleasant evening meal in the restaurant, and put today’s events to one side; for a couple of hours at least. His main concern was Max. Max was strong, both emotionally and physically like the rest of them, but this had to be having an extra strain for him.
Matt sat down with the others. He decided he would lead the discussions. Normally they would discuss the most important aspects first; which in this case would be the fact they had discovered Bella had lied. Matt did not want Max feeling pressured though, so he made the excuse that he wanted to try a different approach. He wanted to address the relevant topics of interest in a random order, starting with the padlock situation.
After much deliberation, the team decided that on balance the padlock situation was most likely a wilful act of vandalism, totally unrelated to Pete’s death. But, if it was connected, then the only reason for tampering with the padlock that the team could come up with was that someone wanted to disguise the fact they had been up to the quarry with a vehicle; perhaps to dump a body – perhaps. The distance between the gates and the steps was too far even for two people to carry a life-less corpse.
If Pete’s body was driven to the quarry, and the scene of death there was staged, then it looked like Bella might be onto something. At the very least it pointed to Pete dying somewhere else first before being moved here, which begged the question why; and suggested something suspicious. They decided they wouldn’t try and answer that aspect of things for now. It was far too early in the investigation; and a possibly tampered with padlock on its own was not enough to warrant too much time looking in that direction.
They did discuss the fact that it was a well-known trick amongst the type of person that breaks and enters, to case a targeted place first; especially if the stakes were high. If it is discovered that the place they want to gain access to is secured with a padlock, a new identical padlock is purchased first. The culprits break-in and when finished, on the way out they fit the new identical padlock. They then glue the hatch shut, or pour glue into the lock. A Police Constable had explained to the team on an earlier case that this was done to buy the culprits some time. If security patrolled the site and looked at the door or gate, they would see the padlock in place and locked. Unless they had reason to try and open it, and hence discover a problem; they would have no reason to assume there had been a break-in. PC Smythe had explained that the more time between the break-in and the discovery of the break-in, the less chance of getting caught. Indeed that was apparently the same for most crimes.
PC Smythe had explained that many owners or security patrols would just assume the padlock was the original one, and when they could not open the hatch or get the key in, they would simply assume it had seized or jammed shut. The glue ensured they could never discover their key would not fit, so they would not learn it was a different padlock. This meant there was an increased chance no alarm was raised until much later; sometimes never. The problem was just put down to a duff padlock mechanism.
It was decided that as far as the padlock situation was concerned, two of them would head back to the quarry gates tomorrow, and just walk about with a metal detector for a while on the off chance the old padlock was lying around. It was a long shot, so they would not invest too much time on it, but the exercise was worth an exploration. Whilst they were there, they would ask if Mr Collins knew of a second issue with any padlocks around the time the steps were sunk.
They all took a fifteen minute break before discussing the next topic. During that break they had an email from Dr Brett, confirming that the original sample of concrete from Pete’s head, and the original concrete sample from the steps were a match; and that his brief examination of the magnified photo the team had sent him today, showed their concrete from the steps was also a match. It was all the same concrete. He reconfirmed that at the time of the investigation, they thought someone had stolen one of the samples, but it was found to simply be misplaced. He finished his email by saying he would call tomorrow or the next day when he had a moment.
Next to be discussed was the curious case of the sinking of the concrete steps. Again, it was agreed this could be a wilful act of vandalism; but the effort and the specialist kit needed meant that in the case of the steps, that was much less likely. Again, they explored how this act might relate to Pete’s death.
In light of such little evidence to go on, the team had to hypothesise as best they could. It would be guesswork, but as this was the first day on the case that was fine; also, it was all they had to go on. At this stage it was more about getting a feel for things and what might possibly be going on, rather than cold hard facts. For arguments sake, assuming there was foul play and not just two coincidental acts of vandalism, and one accidental death in the same place; the only series of events that the team could accept with any plausibility were the following.
Pete died or was killed elsewhere. Then for some reason, his body was dumped in the quarry and the place was staged to appear as if this was where Pete accidently died. Furthermore, that whoever did this knew about the comings and goings at the quarry, and the brand of padlock used on the gates etc. They then managed to orchestrate the swapping of the concrete samples to ensure it appeared as if Pete’s fatal head wound occurred on the steps. Then in order to keep things tidy, whoever had staged the death, sank the steps once the police had left.
The timing of the sinking of the steps proved to be the stumbling block to the team’s solution. Why wait to sink the steps later? By then the crime scene investigators had been everywhere and taken all the samples they needed. So why sink them at all? There was no obvious benefit.
It was Bruno who solved the issue. He pointed out that in their enthusiasm; they were trying to create the perfect, tidy crime. He reminded them all of what they already knew, but were forgetting. Crimes were rarely perfect. There were always issues and problems to deal with just like any other aspect of life. Given that angle, they thought about it again.
Max was the one to settle on the most plausible plan they could come up with for now. Namely that whoever was behind this needed the police to find the steps, and yet not find the steps. On the one hand, they needed the police to identify the steps as the site of where Pete fell and died; but on the other they needed them not to spot any fresh wound in the concrete that showed where the culprits had taken a chunk out of the steps to use in his sample swap. It would be fresh and stand out. It wasn’t perfect, but then as Bruno had just pointed out, murder rarely was. Whoever was behind this had to take a chance, and that was the chance they took; but as soon as the samples were taken and the police left, the steps were sunk to hide the fresh damage, and increase their chances of getting away with murder.
Not only would the steps be hidden underwater, but the fresh concrete exposed in the sample area would tarnish and blend in with the rest much quicker when under water. Should some bright investigator come back to check a theory like that out, the steps would be gone, and whoever was behind this would be safe.
There was nowhere else to go with the steps for now; though they all agreed that if there was anything validating Bella being correct, it was the sinking of the steps. Th
at was just too odd and required too much effort. Something that odd needed more consideration.
The first day on the case was over, and on balance, most of them thought the official verdict would still prove to be correct; but they were developing an alternative. Pete’s death may well have been accidental, but there was a chance it had occurred somewhere else and his body had been moved. If that was the case, there had been a slight of hand played that pointed to a more suspicious death. The various official reports that Bella had got hold of for the team showed there was no foam around Pete’s mouth and no water in his lungs, so he had not drowned. That meant he had been dead when he hit the water. The relevant reports had also shown that the blood spatter on the steps and damage to Pete’s head was consistent with a fall. The height from the top of the cliff to the concrete steps was consistent with Pete’s injuries. It did all tie up. That was the main thing keeping their thoughts in line with the official findings for now. It was time to give their brains a rest.
Matt got up and began pacing whilst he talked.
‘Well I think that’s a good place to stop for now let’s go and eat; our table will be ready.’
They all headed down for what turned out to be a superb evening meal and a few drinks, which led to a good decompress over the rest of the evening. It passed quickly, and the next morning everyone was refreshed and ready for the meeting scheduled with Detective Chief Inspector Edward Stimpson, the Senior Investigating Officer for the case of Peter Stone’s death.
Max couldn’t quiet the words playing over and over in his mind since last night.
Bella is a liar
You are being played
Max shut the words out of his mind as best he could.
Chapter 7
Bruno walked in to their Operations Room, ‘Morning.’
Various versions of good morning came back from everyone.
‘What time and where are we meeting the SIO; Stimpson did you say his name was Matt?’