BURIED CRIMES: a gripping detective thriller full of twists and turns

by MICHAEL HAMBLING

  ‘I visited the estate agent’s office to see if they could give me information about the previous owners of a house in the area. One of the staff recommended that I visit you.’

  ‘Well, I hope I can help, but I’m not sure how. What house is it you’re interested in?’

  ‘Finch Cottage. I need to identify as many occupants as possible.’

  ‘How recent?’ The woman looked puzzled.

  ‘For at least the last twenty-five years if I can.’

  ‘We saw the activity up there yesterday,’ Mrs Court replied. ‘We took our grandchildren to the park after lunch. They were fascinated by all of the cars, vans and flashing lights. People were saying that a body had been found. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t give you any further details except that it had been there a long time. That is why we need information. Were you still working at the agency when the house was sold last June?’

  ‘Yes. It was one of the last sales I was involved with before I left. A lovely house, and nice gardens too. They were a pleasant family who bought it. I dealt with some of the paperwork.’

  Rae sipped her coffee. ‘I’ve seen all of the official records at the agency, but do you know any other details? Anything about the people who lived there while it was being let out? The previous owners? Anything would help. I’m trying to build up as full a picture of its history as possible.’

  The older lady nibbled at a chocolate biscuit. ‘It was empty for about six months before it was sold last spring. Before that it had been rented by three families — furnished, I think. But in each case the lease was only temporary. I can’t give you much in the way of detail because we didn’t handle the lets. This is just what I know from general chatter.’

  ‘I’ll need to write this down,’ said Rae, opening her notebook.

  Margaret Court sipped her coffee. She talked slowly, as if checking each memory as it came to light. The three lets had each been for periods of between six and eighteen months, administered by an agency in London that specialised in homes for long-stay visitors from abroad. As far as Margaret Court knew, two of the lets had been to foreign diplomats and one to a visiting academic.

  ‘But these were all in the past eight years,’ she added. ‘Further back than that is a bit difficult. I’ve a feeling that it might have been owned by an actress at one time, and also the manager of a small shipping line that ran from Weymouth, but I can’t be absolutely sure. I need some time to get my thoughts together and to try and remember the rough dates. Would that be okay?’

  ‘Of course. You can think about it and let me know when you’re ready. I’ll come back to get the details.’ Rae finished writing and handed over her card. She saw that Margaret had been watching her.

  ‘You’ve taken a lot of care over your appearance,’ the older woman said. ‘I have to congratulate you. One of our nephews is trying to be a woman. He’s not half as convincing as you. He’s called Andrea now.’

  ‘Is this relevant?’ Rae responded, irritated. ‘I’m not a he, and I haven’t ever truly been one. I’m a she, as your Andrea is. Maybe it’s time you digested that.’ How much longer would it take for people just to accept her and other women like her without the need to make some comment? It was getting infuriating. If this woman had someone transgender in her family, surely she should know that endless comments, no matter how well-meaning, aren’t welcome.

  ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s just that Andrea struggles so much to fit in. And no matter how hard I try, I keep remembering the boy he was.’

  ‘Probably an unhappy boy,’ Rae replied. ‘Even though he would have tried desperately not to let it show, it would have been there, I know.’ She closed her notebook and put it in her bag. She looked at her watch. ‘Thanks for your help, and please get in touch if you remember anything else.’

  She stood up, turned and walked out of the room more quickly than usual. Had she been too sharp with Mrs Court? Well, it was too late now.

  What should she do next? She drove back to the police station to continue checking on the house’s history by phone. She had enough information now to get started.

  * * *

  Barry Marsh was back at Finch Cottage checking on the searches that were going on. Ground-penetrating radar had been brought in, but it had not shown any other bodies buried in the garden. He’d brought in the dog unit that had proved so useful the previous year in the search of Charlie Duff’s land in Poole, but this too had revealed nothing. The bodies of the two young children were the only ones there. Thank God for that, he thought. Saturday’s discoveries had been grim enough, without more being found. He watched the technical team pack their kit away, then walked across to join Dave Nash in the forensic tent. A few bags of soil from the rudimentary graves were still stacked neatly to one side, awaiting transport to the labs. Barry had watched the large bulk of materials being dispatched earlier. It would take the forensic team some time to work their way through the soil removed from the immediate area of the double grave. He wondered if the process could be automated in some way. Probably there was no substitute, in the early stages anyway, to manually sifting the soil, with observant people looking for anything out of place.

  Marsh returned to the incident room at Dorchester police station. The computer systems should have been readied by now, prepared to start receiving the mass of data that would inevitably accumulate. In the boss’s absence, he would need to check that the administrative staff had structured the systems properly. DCI Allen had gone to London mid-morning, but had said nothing about the reason for her visit. His was not to reason why.

  Chapter 3: The Worst Thing

  Monday lunchtime

  Harry Turner sat in a small alcove sipping his pint and wondering why he’d agreed to come. He’d cancelled a lunch date with a couple of cronies from the local chess club in order to be here. Maybe lunch date was the wrong term to use. In reality it had been more like an informal agreement to meet over a drink. He looked out of the window at the busy London traffic queuing up outside on its way past the bulk of Waterloo Station, taxis stuck behind a bus, forced to stop mid-road to unload passengers because a bakery van was parked in the bus pull-in. As he finally passed the van, the bus driver gave it a cheery wave. Surprising, thought Harry, wishing that some cheer could be directed his way.

  He took another sip of his beer and fought his way back through a forest of memories, to the final weeks before she’d left. The increasing sense of desperation that had engulfed him in those last days had taken him unawares. It had been obvious that she’d eventually move on, that her time with him would be limited, so he should have been prepared. But the human brain is a funny old thing, he thought. You can rationalise and reason things through until you’ve kidded yourself that you’ll cope, but when absence has become a reality, it knocks you for six.

  He missed everything about her. Her smile, her sense of style, her ability to say just the right thing and reflect back at him the very ideas that were formulating in his own brain. Her willingness to take risks, her determination and drive. No one had ever replaced her. No one could, not in his view. And in those bleak months after she’d left, he’d dragged himself home every day and wondered how he would cope. But, of course, he had. Just like she’d told him he would.

  ‘Harry,’ she’d said, ‘don’t be stupid. There’ll be others. You attract talent, really you do.’

  And she’d flung her arms around him and given him a long, farewell kiss on the cheek. If only she’d known. If only she’d realised what he’d really meant when he said he would miss her terribly. That he was referring to things that went deeper than the superficial words could convey.

  He could still remember the perfume she favoured. The heavy, dark, musky scent seemed to coil around her, particularly on that last day. He could almost taste it, all these years later.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. So it wasn’t his brain playing tricks, she still wore the same perfume.

  ‘Hello, Harry.
’

  He glanced up as she slid into the seat opposite. Would he be able to speak? Could his lips open? Would any sense come out of them?

  ‘You’re looking well,’ she continued.

  He responded with a nod and pointed at the brimming glass of beer on the table in front of her.

  ‘Got one in for you.’ There. He’d finally said something and it hadn’t been gobbledegook.

  ‘Thanks. I’m grateful, Harry. Not just for the beer but the fact that you’re willing to meet me like this.’

  He took another sip. Maybe it would be alright, after all.

  ‘It’s a pleasure, Sophie. I told you when you left that you could always come back to me for advice if you needed it.’

  ‘Yes, but that was fifteen years ago. A lot’s happened since, to both of us. Particularly to you, now you’ve retired. I always knew how lucky I was in having you as a boss, Harry. It’s not just that you were the best in the business and were willing to share your thoughts with me. It was the fact that I could see the way the other bosses treated young women coppers. You were different. You never tried to lay a finger on me, not ever.’

  ‘But I did have feelings for you, Sophie. I never let on. Did you know?’

  ‘Yes. I guessed. There were clues. And I didn’t know what to do. I had Hannah just about to start school, and Jade was a baby. Martin was struggling with some appalling classes at his school. And I’d always thought of you as a father figure, as well as my boss. It frightened me.’

  He lowered his eyes. ‘I knew you’d never known your father, so I guess I slipped into that role a bit too easily. Maybe it was just so comfortable that I didn’t realise it was turning into something else.’ He took another sip of beer. ‘Anyway, water under the bridge. You moved on and got on with your life, as was right and proper. And Archie Campbell added the finishing touches and turned you into the detective you are today.’

  Sophie reached across and rested her hand on his.

  ‘But you’ll always be my first and most important mentor, Harry. I couldn’t have done it without the start you gave me. I owe you everything.’ She picked up the menu card. ‘Shall we get some food? This is my treat.’

  Sophie took their order to the bar.

  When she returned to her seat, she asked, ‘how’s Sheila?’

  ‘She died six months ago. Heart attack.’

  ‘Oh God, Harry. Why didn’t you let me know? Christ. I’d have come to the funeral, you know I would.’

  ‘That’s what I was afraid of. Sheila dead, and you appearing. I just couldn’t have coped. I swore everyone to secrecy so that you didn’t hear about it.’

  ‘Shit. This isn’t going the way I wanted it to. I thought it would be simple. We’d have a drink and something to eat. I’d pick your brains for a while, then we’d say goodbye and I’d catch my train back to Wareham. But now this.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It wasn’t a surprise when she had the final big one that took her. She’d had a sequence of small ones that everyone said were warning signs. But she ignored all the advice, and kept smoking and drinking. She always knew better than the experts, in health matters as well as everything else. She nearly drove me mad.’

  ‘But you still loved her.’

  He nodded. ‘She gave me our two children, and they’re wonderful. Both married now. In fact I’m a grandfather, so life isn’t all doom and gloom.’ He paused. ‘I hate to say it, but I don’t really miss her as much as I should. I suppose we slowly drifted apart, particularly in the final years. She wouldn’t leave the bottle alone. Everything was becoming impossible.’

  Sophie didn’t answer immediately. ‘I bet you’re a brilliant grandfather. Just like you were a brilliant dad. Matthew told me, years ago. I always thought he was like you.’ She touched his cheek. ‘I buried my own father last winter, Harry. I found out what happened to him.’

  He nodded again. ‘I heard later. I was away on holiday in Greece at the time. Archie Campbell was down here for a conference and we met for a couple of drinks. He told me all about it. I really don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Maybe we should just get down to business. We’re getting ourselves embroiled in the past and I came to see you because of problems in the here and now.’

  They talked as they ate.

  ‘Child-killing, Harry. That’s why I need to pick your brains. I know it was after I left, but you became the Met’s expert on child murder. And it’s that I want to know about. I just can’t visualise what went on. My brain seizes up and I start to panic when I try to think about it. Why’s that, Harry? Is it just me, or does it happen to others?’

  ‘It’s the worst thing. It’s the most terrible thing we can ask our minds to think about. Maybe we all react in different ways, but that’s the reason for it. We’re emotional beings, we humans. We’ve evolved to care and protect our children. Our brains are unable to cope with the thought of murdering a child. It can just leave us in a horrified pit of emptiness if we let it.’

  ‘So how do I cope? I can’t ask my team to get on with it if I can’t work through it myself. What can I do?’

  ‘Do what I always trained you to do. Blank it out. Once the investigation starts in earnest, go emotionally cold on it. Don’t let yourself imagine the victims and their lives unless it’s in a productive way. Treat it all as data. Once it’s over, and you’ve got the killer safely locked up, then is the time to relax and let some emotion in.’ He chewed on another mouthful of salad. ‘Yours is an historic case anyway, Sophie. That’s if my guess is right and it’s those children’s bodies in Dorchester?’

  Sophie nodded.

  ‘Okay, so it’ll be easier. It was, what, fifteen, twenty years ago?’

  Another nod.

  ‘So you won’t have to meet any family members whose emotions are raw and bloody. Time will have softened the memories. So it’s just you, and you’ve got to stay on top of it.’

  ‘But they were both so young. The boy could have only been about eight at the most. And the little girl was about the same age, we think. They’ve been down in that hole for longer than they were alive.’

  ‘Exactly. I know you, Sophie. I know you can do this.’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘I’m not who I was, Harry, not now. Not after that business with my father last year. Part of me went missing when I discovered the truth about him.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘I’m scared that I can’t do it anymore.’

  ‘I’ll be here if you need me. I can even pay a couple of visits if it would help.’

  ‘Oh Harry, that would be wonderful. I’ve never felt vulnerable like this before. Why’s it happening?’

  ‘It’s not just you. It happened to me a couple of times, but I never told anyone. Maybe it was the cause of the rift between me and Sheila, part of it anyway. I brooded on it and she couldn’t reach me. Don’t let that happen to you, Sophie.’

  ‘I’ll try not to. Anyway, Martin wouldn’t let it.’

  ‘Well, that’s good. Now let’s finish the food and you can let me see what you’ve got on the case so far. What train are you getting?’

  ‘Not sure. There’s one every half hour, so it’s not a problem. I may not be going directly back anyway.’

  They were just finishing their lunch when Harry had his idea.

  ‘I found it useful to speak to people in social work or child protection when I first took over the unit. I don’t mean as part of any investigation, just to get a feel for the realities of violence against children. Maybe you could do the same. Someone who’s not connected with the case who’ll be able to give you some support if things seem to be getting too much. Is there anyone down your way that you know? Someone with experience in dealing with vulnerable children?’

  After a long pause, Sophie’s face lit up.

  ‘My grandfather!’ she said. ‘He worked for Gloucestershire council, in charge of social issues. It was called something else back then. He’s in his late eighties and when he retired he did voluntary work for a children’
s care charity for many years. It would be ideal. It would give me an excuse to see him and get him involved. I know he came across some pretty dreadful things that he won’t talk about. This would benefit both of us. He’s always complaining that I work too much and don’t see him and my grandmother often enough. I wonder if I could see them this evening? I’m meeting Hannah for an afternoon coffee here in London, so I could check train times to Gloucester, and possibly see them this evening rather than going directly back to Dorset.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’d better be off.’

  She stood up and gave her first boss a hug and a peck on the cheek. ‘Harry, you’ve been so helpful. I’ll be in touch, I promise.’

  Harry Turner watched her walk smartly away and through the door where she quickly disappeared into the crowd. He couldn’t begin to sort through the whirl of emotions this meeting had stirred in him. One thing was sure. If she did ask him for more help, he’d be ready. It was time to dust off some of the personal case notes he’d made years ago while investigating similar crimes, thrust into the back of an old cupboard at home. If his instincts were correct, she’d need all the help she could get on this one.

  * * *

  Rain was beginning to fall as Sophie emerged from Russell Square underground station and crossed the road to the modern shopping complex in Bloomsbury. She paused in the entrance to the café and spotted her elder daughter sitting at a small table near the door, waving to her. The rich smell of coffee was closely followed by the delicate scent of Hannah’s perfume as the two women hugged each other.

  ‘Mum, you look a bit flushed. Are you okay?’ Hannah asked as they sat down.

  Sophie and Martin’s elder daughter was now in her third year at Drama College and was beginning to pick up one or two acting roles in suburban theatres. Her parents had been rather surprised when, at her fifteenth birthday party, their quiet daughter had announced her intention to become an actress. She had never changed her mind and was now making a great success of her college course. She was blonde, like her mother, but more slightly built than the rest of the family. She had started to make a name for herself playing the role of young, vulnerable women. In fact, as her parents knew all too well, she was as tough as well-tanned leather. Sophie smiled at her daughter.