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

by MICHAEL HAMBLING

  Three people walked onto the low stage at the front of the room. She glanced at her watch and popped a peppermint sweet into her mouth. It didn’t look as though her sister would make it after all. Nothing new there. She became aware of unexpected movement to her right as a figure squeezed along the row and sat down beside her. How typical. A choice between sliding to her seat in front of five people from the left aisle or ten if moving in from the right. Which would have the greater impact? There you go.

  * * *

  On stage, Hannah Allen went up to the microphone, introduced herself and gave a short description of the charity she represented.

  ‘You’ll only see me between speakers, you’ll be glad to hear,’ she said. ‘They’re experts and I’m not, and I’m so grateful to them for agreeing to talk this afternoon. It’s the first time we’ve been to Dorchester. We’re mainly based in London, but I grew up in Dorset, so I’m doubly pleased to be back in my home county, although I’m a bit nervous because my dad and Gran are here watching me.’ She smiled and gave a small wave. ‘Please don’t think that the problem of FGM doesn’t occur here in Dorset. I happen to know that only yesterday a twelve-year-old girl from a Somali family who live near Poole was saved from being flown out of the country to be cut. We must all be vigilant until FGM has become a thing of the past.’

  Hannah introduced the first speaker and returned to her seat to one side of the platform. The stage was Hannah’s natural home. She loved being there, having an audience in front of her, alive with anticipation. This was a very different kind of audience of course, assembled for a lecture, but it had still given her the familiar thrill. And she’d spotted Jade sitting next to her grandmother. She’d made it after all.

  The two fifteen-minute talks were followed by a question and answer session, that Hannah chaired. Once that was over, the assembled company gathered around a table at the rear of the hall. Tea and biscuits were being served. One of the regular staff was ill, so Dorothy had volunteered to help. Not that there was much work involved. All she had to do was stand behind the table, pour teas and beakers of orange squash, put biscuits onto plates and push them towards anyone who approached the table.

  Hannah broke away from her family and went over to the table to return her empty cup. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but the woman sitting to your right during the lecture looked familiar. Do you happen to know if she was an actress at one time?’

  Dorothy put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Not to worry. She arrived just as I was about to start speaking, so I waited for her to settle before I started the talk. I thought it looked as if you knew her.’

  ‘Um . . . no.’

  Jade came up beside her sister. ‘Hi! I saw you in the café yesterday morning. I was with my mum. You left in a bit of a hurry. I wanted to tell you that you dropped your hankie. I spotted it, so Lily at the café kept it behind the counter. Did you realise you’d lost it?’

  Dorothy looked frantically around, looking for an escape route. Why was this happening? Why were these two young women plying her with questions? Where had her sister gone? Why must she always panic when strangers started talking to her? And then, miraculously, Dorothy’s sister appeared, as if from nowhere. She was smiling, ready to take control as she lifted a cup to her lips.

  ‘Um . . .’ Dorothy pointed to Hannah and managed to add the words, ‘asking about you.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind. I saw you from the platform as you arrived and I thought you looked familiar. It took me a while to put a name to the face, but are you by any chance Pauline Stopley, the actress? It’s just that I’m in my last year at drama college in London and I’ve seen a couple of your photos from the nineties.’

  Pauline lowered her cup, revealing a warm smile. ‘Yes, that’s me, although I no longer act. I work for the Arts Council now. I had to stop acting well over a decade ago because of a spell of bad health. It took me a long time to recover and I lost the motivation to get back on the stage.’

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear that. I wondered what happened to you after I read about your acting career.’ Hannah paused. ‘Do you miss it? I hope you don’t mind me asking.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. In your position, I’d ask exactly the same question. And strangely, the answer is no, not really. I do enjoy my current job, and I like the security it brings.’

  ‘And my Gran thinks she remembers you. She saw you in a couple of productions at the Bristol Old Vic. She’d love to meet you, if you don’t mind. She still lives in Bristol.’

  Pauline smiled and nodded. Hannah beckoned to her grandmother.

  ‘Gran, I was right. This is Pauline Stopley. Pauline, this is my grandmother, Susan Carswell. She’s a great theatre-goer and is probably to blame for putting the idea of acting into my head when I was a teenager.’

  While the women chatted, Jade looked back at the table. Dorothy appeared to have vanished.

  ‘Where did that serving lady go?’ she asked.

  Pauline shrugged. ‘No idea,’ she said. She wasn’t going to let on that the serving lady, as Jade had called her, was her younger sister. She was sure that Dorothy wouldn’t have said anything either. Better not to have people wondering about their somewhat strained relationship. She was glad that she’d changed out of the short, gold-zipped, black dress and high-heeled shoes that she’d been wearing for her evening with John Wethergill. The outfit would have been just a little over the top for the crowd who’d turned up for this talk. Her conversation with these women wouldn’t have gone so well if she’d been dressed as though she’d just come out of a nightclub. That man who’d come over with the older woman looked rather charming too. Pity he was wearing a wedding ring. Maybe she was being too greedy, thought Pauline. After all, she’d just had a very enjoyable night with the courteous, thoughtful and rather old-fashioned John Wethergill. She smiled brilliantly at the woman.

  ‘I understand you saw me a couple of times at the Old Vic in Bristol. Can you remember which productions?’

  Susan Carswell said, ‘I was trying to remember after Hannah here mentioned your name. They could have been farces, possibly by Michael Frayn, but I can’t be sure.’

  ‘It’s possible. I did several of those. At one point it seemed as if I was permanently on the road. It was great fun, but often I felt I was missing out on a stable, settled life. Once or twice I found myself wondering whether it was what I really wanted, after all. In the end the decision was made for me when I became ill. I pulled through but things weren’t the same for me.’

  ‘What was the illness, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Hepatitis. I was weak for a long time afterwards.’

  ‘How sad,’ Hannah interjected. ‘Ending your career in that way. I find it such a thrill, being on stage. There’s nothing like it. Did you find that?’

  ‘Oh, yes. But life has to go on. And you find other things to do, other things to give you that rush of excitement and tension. It’s not the end of the world, believe me.’

  ‘Do you enjoy the work you do now?’

  ‘Yes, I do. My job with the Arts Council takes me all over the place and I meet lots of interesting people. I’m quite heavily involved in theatre grants, so I haven’t wasted all the years I spent acting. I don’t approve of performing arts administrators who’ve never had any first-hand experience themselves. They can either be too harsh in their decisions or too . . . lovey-dovey.’ She glanced at a clock on the wall. ‘I have to be going, I’m afraid. It was lovely to chat to you all. Hannah, if you want to stay in touch, just call or email me. I’d be glad to help your career in any way I can.’ She handed the aspiring actress a business card, then left.

  ‘What a pleasant woman,’ Hannah said to her grandmother. ‘And she’s right. The people in charge ought to have some first-hand experience.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, Hannah,’ Susan replied. ‘Look at me. I’m the practice manager of a GP medical centre, ye
t I’ve had no formal medical training of any type. I’ve been on lots of training courses, and I think I do a good job. So do the doctors I work with. It’s the motivation to do a good job that matters, more than anything else. That’s what I think.’

  Martin Allen nodded, trying to keep a straight face. ‘I agree, Susan. Give me a sensible, well trained, dedicated person over a drama queen any day.’ He winked at his mother-in-law.

  Hannah’s mouth opened, and then she realised that her father was teasing her. She gave him a sweet smile, and kicked his ankle.

  ‘Dad, you’re just an incorrigible mischief-maker.’

  * * *

  Dorothy Kitson stood outside, in the shadows at the rear of the building, trembling and drawing nervously on one more cigarette. Could she tell anyone? Should she? What would happen to her if she did? It was all too much for her, all of it.

  Chapter 16: Soil Samples

  Monday morning, week 2

  Rae was examining the brickwork. ‘What do you think, sir?’

  Barry Marsh directed a flashlight at the cellar wall and fingered the metal ring affixed to the brickwork. A single bulb lit this end of the cool, slightly musty room and few details could be made out. He guessed that this end of the cellar, away from the steps from the kitchen, had hardly been used over the years. The room was spacious enough to hold the junk that most families would throw into a cellar. There was no need to come to this end at all, with its dry soil floor. He was surprised that no one had bothered to split the vast room into smaller units, and fit shelves and cupboards. But then he remembered the garage, workshop and shed, all within easy reach of the back door and garden. Probably this room had never been needed.

  ‘Well the boss has already asked forensics to take a sample of soil from over here, just as a precaution. It’s not worth getting them to come back and dust for prints unless we find a strong reason for it.’ The dim room had a different, eerier atmosphere than the rest of the building, and they were almost whispering. Maybe it had played a part in the events of twenty years ago.

  ‘We need to trace every single previous occupant just to eliminate them from suspicion. I’m almost finished with the list. I’m just wondering, boss. We’ve only been tracing tenants. We may need to start on the landlords and owners next. The owners could well still have access to a key, couldn’t they? They’d know when the place was going to be empty, or even when the residents were away on holiday. We can’t discount them.’ She peered into the dingy gloom of the cellar. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Until just now we couldn’t be sure what might have happened, and what led to those two children being buried. But now? It’s starting to look one way, isn’t it? None of us have met this kind of thing before. It’s why the boss went to London last week to see an expert she knows, just in case it turns out to be nasty. She was wondering about inviting him down, so that we’re prepared for what we might discover. It’s looking more and more as if he’ll be needed. I keep wondering what that metal ring is for, sunk into the brickwork like that. I feel uneasy too.’

  The two detectives climbed back up the steps to the kitchen door. Marsh locked the cellar behind him.

  ‘Are there any other copies of the key?’ he asked Philip Freeman, who was waiting in the kitchen.

  Philip opened a drawer and took out a tin containing a single key. ‘That’s all we have,’ he said.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later Marsh and Gregson walked into the incident room and made their way to the information board. Marsh was adding a few words to the "cellar" strand on the display when he realised that Sophie and Neil Dunnett had joined them. He also realised that Rae had fallen silent. She was staring rigidly at the board as if in a trance. The atmosphere had become tense, and Dunnett did nothing to alleviate it.

  ‘Good morning, Sergeant. And good morning to you, DC Gregson.’ His voice was low. It almost slithered through the air, and the emphasis on the final phrase caused Rae to stiffen even more.

  ‘Morning, sir,’ said Marsh, trying to lighten the strained atmosphere. ‘Good to see you here. An effective press release on Friday, I thought. It read well in the papers.’

  Dunnett ignored him and continued to stare at Rae. ‘How have you settled in, Gregson? Dorset treating you any better than Wiltshire?’

  There was a pause. As she responded, Rae continued to stare straight ahead at the board. ‘Fine thank you, sir. I believe so. I think I’m doing a good job.’ Marsh and Sophie could both hear the tremor in her voice.

  ‘Well, don’t let the team down, Gregson. Not on my watch,’ Dunnett said.

  Sophie broke in. ‘That’s hardly likely, sir. I’ve already stated several times that I think Rae has done a first-rate job for us.’

  ‘As long as that continues, I’ll be happy.’ Dunnett shook hands with Sophie and left.

  Rae was trembling. She turned and hurried out of the room without a word. Marsh and Sophie stared at each other, then Sophie said, ‘I’ll check the toilets, you check the car park.’

  Rae was nowhere to be found.

  * * *

  A full half hour later Rae reappeared, carrying a coffee that she set carefully down on her desk. She started to work on the Finch Cottage residents’ list. Marsh looked at Sophie and raised his eyebrows, but she shook her head. The results had come in from the analytical chemists at Southampton University, so Marsh ploughed on. He finally gave up trying to decipher the rows of figures and the explanatory text that accompanied them. He took them to Sophie.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am. It would help if I knew what we were looking for, but I’m completely lost, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I guess you were just on the email address list,’ she replied. ‘It’s really intended for Dave Nash, but I think I can explain. If the children were kept down in that cellar, tethered up and mistreated, there might be residues in the soil. That’s why I requested the analysis. Urine leaves a high nitrogen content. Faeces leave phosphates. Blood leaves iron. None of it could have been leached away by rain, not there, so we’re looking for unusually high levels. They took samples from three areas in the cellar, left side, right side, and near the rear wall, where you were looking at that securing ring. So let’s look for differences.’

  She spread the documents out on the desk and began reading.

  ‘Look. This set of figures shows higher nitrate levels than the others. It’s sample C, which is our position of interest, where that ring was fixed to the wall.’

  Marsh read. There were slight variations in the nitrate figures for the other two samples, but the level here was significantly higher.

  ‘Same for the phosphate, do you see? Though it’s not as obvious.’

  ‘So that means the children could have been there? And, if so, they were being maltreated?’

  ‘It suggests the possibility. It could also be that someone stored some general fertiliser at that spot, and spilled some. We can’t be sure what caused the increase. But look here. The iron shows no such level, indicating that there was no blood in the soil. We’ll need to have a chat with Dave about all this, but I think my assumptions are right. It all adds to the picture, doesn’t it? But it can’t be counted as hard evidence. It simply adds weight to the possibility that the children were kept down there for a while, and maybe in awful conditions. But there could be other explanations. Maybe someone kept a dog tied up to the ring. It’s all a mass of unknowns and we could get ourselves completely side-tracked by the various possibilities. We have to build up a reliable picture of what went on, and that is not going to be easy.’

  Marsh pointed to the covering letter. ‘They’re asking us to contact their head of department, a Professor Wendy Millward. I’m a bit dim about all this detailed science, ma’am. Maybe it’d be better if you did it?’

  Sophie was amused. ‘It’s a sign of the times, isn’t it, when a bloke passes the scientific stuff over to a woman? Yes, I’ll give her a ring later. Maybe she’s found something else that’s interesting.’<
br />
  ‘So, what now?’

  ‘I’ll get Harry Turner to come down and talk us through it. If we’re not absolutely clear, we’ll find our minds are all over the place.’

  Marsh paused. ‘What about Rae, ma’am?’

  ‘She should have calmed down by now. Have a word with her. See if she’s willing to volunteer an explanation. I’m trying to recall the details of what I found out about our esteemed DCS when I had my first run-in with him a couple of years ago. I think he was in Wiltshire for a spell before he came here. I just wonder whether they’ve crossed swords before. It would explain why he said those odd things last week.’ She tapped her fingers on the desktop. ‘Don’t push it, though, Barry. Let her take her time, and leave it if she’s obviously not ready to do so. We can follow it up later, in the pub if necessary.’

  Rae didn’t look up when Marsh approached her desk.

  ‘Hi. Do you want to talk?’

  Rae kept her eyes fixed on the papers in front of her.

  ‘Not really, sir.’

  ‘That’s fine. But I do need to know if the two of you have a history.’

  There was a long pause. ‘Yes, we do,’ she whispered.

  Marsh noticed the heightened colour in her cheeks.

  ‘The boss and I need to know about it, Rae. We need to be kept in the picture if we’re to help you.’

  Rae nodded. Finally she raised her eyes. ‘Okay. Maybe later, or tomorrow. I can’t think straight just now.’

  ‘Do you want to take a break and go home? We can afford to give you the rest of the day off.’