An Unsafe Pair of Hands

by Chris Dolley

  “That was me,” said Shand. “You grabbed my ankle.” Something Shand would never forget.

  “That was you?” asked Helena surprised.

  Shand nodded. “You’re doing very well, Mrs. Benson. Now think, did you hear anything before that? Footsteps, an argument, a car?”

  Helena shook her head, then lowered it. “To be honest, inspector, I don’t know what I heard. I thought I heard worms slithering over the box. I thought I heard rats and spiders, and every horrible thing you could imagine.” She started to cry. “I was down there for such a long time, inspector. A long, long time.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Detective Chief Superintendent Wiggins appeared at the hospital room door.

  “Shand? A word, please,” he said, nodding towards the corridor.

  Shand apologised to the Bensons, and followed his boss outside.

  “Sir?” he said.

  “How’s it going, Shand?” Wiggins asked. “Second day on the job, and you catch your first murder case. Must be pretty daunting.”

  A knot tightened in Shand’s stomach. Was he about to have the case taken off him? “Not really, sir,” he said. “I like the challenge.”

  “Do you? Look, Shand, I won’t beat about the bush. You know the staffing problems. I have three DIs on suspension, and a DCI on gardening leave. This corruption investigation has ripped the heart out of the department.”

  Shand waited for the ‘but,’ preparing his counter-argument for when it came. He’d never had a job taken off him in his life.

  “Any other time,” continued Wiggins, “I’d second a senior officer from one of the other divisions to take charge, but I haven’t anyone free for a week. Everyone’s overloaded as it is.”

  Shand fought back a smile. “I understand, sir, but I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No, I’m confident I can clear this case.” Shand looked the Chief Superintendent squarely in the eye. His years at the Inspectorate had taught him that appearance was everything. Look confident, act confident. He might not have the experience of running a murder enquiry, but he’d written the book on procedure. “I’m used to being thrown in at the deep end.”

  Wiggins held his gaze for several seconds before breaking into a smile. “Good man,” he said, slapping Shand on the shoulder. “’A safe pair of hands,’ isn’t that what they called you at the Inspectorate?”

  It was. When he’d first heard it, he’d been flattered – a recognition of his skills: his attention to detail, his ability to find the common ground between opposing factions, to anticipate problems before they occurred.

  But lately it had begun to sound hollow. What was a safe pair of hands? Someone who never dropped the ball, never took risks, and always played it safe.

  Something that didn’t square with his inner picture of himself. Or, more accurately, the inner picture he’d held as a child. Then, he’d envisaged himself as a risk-taker, someone who’d never be satisfied with the mundane, someone who’d seize opportunities others couldn’t even see.

  Strange, thought Shand, how the older he became, the more his thoughts turned to his childhood, and the stronger those memories and feelings became. He could bring back the faces of old school friends he hadn’t seen for thirty years, and yet struggle to recall the name of a colleague he’d known but five years ago.

  “I’ve had a word with support services, Shand, so no worries there. They’ve agreed to make this case top priority, so you’ll have all the forensic support you need. And if you don’t, tell me and I’ll give someone a bollocking. Okay?”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And don’t forget to keep the press sweet. I’ve set up a press conference in Sturton for four this afternoon. Should give you enough time to get your head around the case.”

  “Right,” said Shand, suddenly realising that he’d never given a press conference in his life. He’d worked in the Inspectorate Press Office, he’d written press releases, he’d prepared senior officers for the occasional interview, but he’d never had to face the press himself.

  “Our press officer will be there ten minutes before to take you through the ropes. Though, with your years in the press office I expect you could teach him a few things, eh Shand?”

  Shand forced a smile and wondered how large the press conference would be. A few people he could handle, but what if it turned into a circus? Dead body in a stone circle, woman buried alive. It was bound to attract the tabloids, maybe even live TV, or the international media. He’d never dealt with the tabloids before. All his experience had been with the serious press, dry briefings of facts and figures, crime stats, trends, enquiries and reports.

  Wiggins interrupted Shand’s worried line of thought. “Oh, and Shand?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I’d change your trousers before the press conference.”

  Shand looked down at what had once been his best pair of trousers. Dirt and grass stains covered both knees, a souvenir from his frantic efforts to rescue Helena. He’d have to return to the hotel to change. Something else he’d have to fit in before four.

  ~

  “Mr. Benson?” said Shand, leaning his head around the hospital room door. “Could I have a word? There’s a few things I need to clear up.”

  “Of course,” said George, reluctantly letting go of his wife’s hand. “I won’t be a minute, dear.”

  Shand found a quiet spot farther along the corridor.

  “Has anyone been threatening you, Mr. Benson?”

  George looked surprised. “No.”

  Shand watched him closely. George swallowed and looked away.

  “Any name you give me will be handled in the strictest confidence. No one will ever know it came from you.”

  “I told you, chief inspector, no one has threatened either of us. We have no enemies.”

  “Someone abducted your wife, Mr. Benson, and buried her alive. That’s no random act of violence. That’s deliberate and targeted. Now, why would anyone do that?”

  George shrugged. His breathing had quickened and his forehead had begun to glisten. Was it nerves or fear?

  “Have you been told to keep quiet? We can protect you. Both of you. Just give me a name.”

  “There is no name. We have no enemies.”

  There was no conviction in his voice. He could barely look Shand in the eye.

  “Where’s your bank?” snapped Shand.

  “My bank?”

  “Yes, your bank, Mr. Benson. I want you to take me there now.”

  “I … I can’t. The keys are back at the house.”

  “You keep the keys to the bank at home?”

  “Of course.”

  Suddenly Shand saw a reason for Helena’s eyes being taped shut.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Shand rang the station at Sturton.

  “Send a car to the Provincial Bank on Church Street. Tell them to look for anything unusual, maybe a robbery in progress. Monitor the situation, but exercise extreme caution. Assume anyone inside might be armed. Tell them to stay outside until I arrive with the manager.”

  He looked at George, watching for a response. George looked down at his feet.

  “Is that a problem for you, George?” Shand pressed. “A police car outside the branch?”

  “No,” said George quietly.

  “If someone told you not to involve the police, now’s the time to say.”

  George shrugged, still not meeting Shand’s eye. “No one told me anything, chief inspector. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  ~

  Shand left Sherminster hospital and drove as fast as the country lanes would allow. Thirty miles of bends and slow tractors, rolling hills, patchwork fields, small woods and picturesque villages. George sat by his side, silently staring out the passenger-side window.

  Shand tried to draw him out – in between dodging the oncoming traffic – but George stonewalled. He hadn’t been threatened, and no one was rob
bing his bank.

  “You know we’ll check your alibi for last night?” said Shand. “If you weren’t in Sherminster, now’s the time to say.”

  “Check all you like, chief inspector. I have a dozen witnesses.”

  Shand glanced sideways at his passenger. The fear had gone, but the apprehension remained. It was everywhere – in his voice, his demeanour, the way he could barely look Shand in the eye.

  “What time did your stag night break up?”

  “About midnight. Maybe later. I can’t remember exactly. Duncan and I took a taxi back to his place.”

  “Duncan?”

  “An old friend. He lives in Sherminster so I arranged to stay overnight with him and his wife.”

  Shand swung out for the third time to see if the road was clear for overtaking. It wasn’t.

  Scenarios flew through his head, none of them making any sense. He could see the logic in taking a bank manager’s wife hostage on a Friday night. Maybe even burying her to increase the pressure on her husband. But why didn’t they take George? Had it been a miscalculation – they’d turned up on the one evening that George was away? Or was that part of their plan – to attack the Bensons when they were apart? To threaten George when all he could hear was his wife’s screams at the other end of a phone line?

  “We’ll check your phone records, you know,” said Shand, swinging out into traffic and accelerating hard. “Just say the word and we’ll give you twenty-four hour protection. A safe house if you want. Any threats made against you are useless now.”

  George didn’t say a word.

  Miles passed. Several times Shand tried to tempt George with light conversation – anything to make him open up – asking directions at road junctions, the names of villages.

  “What’s that place there?” he asked as they passed what looked like an army camp.

  “Nethercombe asylum camp,” said George.

  “Bet that’s popular with the locals?”

  George shrugged and looked away. Shand gave up.

  Four miles later, they pulled up outside Ivy Cottage.

  “Where do you keep the keys to the bank?” said Shand hurrying George out of the car.

  “In the study.”

  “That’s the room to the left?”

  Shand was turning left at the door before George could answer. It was the only room in the house that could be called a study. Bookshelves lined one wall, a couple of uncomfortable looking armchairs filled a bay window, and a desk lay in the gloom at the back.

  Shand stepped aside for George to pass. He watched him walk over to the desk, unlock the top drawer and feel inside.

  “Well,” he said impatiently.

  George smiled and produced a ring of keys. “See, chief inspector, they’re all here.”

  Shand stood in silence for several seconds. He’d been so sure. It was the only explanation that had even begun to make sense.

  He rang the station sergeant at Sturton.

  “Any word from the bank?”

  “I’ll check.”

  Shand agonised as the seconds passed in silence. He could feel his right foot tapping anxiously on the floorboards. What was keeping them? Had there been a problem?

  A voice crackled into coherence. “No sign of a break in at the bank, sir. Everything’s locked and secure. Officers standing by.”

  “May I fetch Helena’s clothes now?” asked George.

  “What? Yes, go ahead.” Shand was miles away. What if the gang had made an impression of George’s key? They’d had ten hours. They could have made a copy, cleared out the vault, locked up after themselves and left.

  He took the keys outside to examine them in the light. He couldn’t see any wax or soap residue.

  He sighed. Why was it that every time he thought he got a handle on this case the handle promptly vanished?

  And why hadn’t Anne rung? It was eleven fifteen. Two hours had passed since he’d called. Was the meeting still going on, or had she left for an early lunch with Gabriel?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Shand tapped on the police car window with his warrant card. “Anything to report?”

  There wasn’t. They’d checked the doors and windows of the bank, and walked around the back. Everything was secure.

  “We listened at both doors. It’s as quiet as the grave in there.”

  Shand waited on the steps, flanked by the two coppers as George struggled with the keys. Shand could almost smell the adrenaline. Four unarmed men about to walk into a potential bank robbery. Most of the Division twenty-five minutes away in Athelcott on house-to-house duty.

  The heavy oak doors parted. George walked into the small entrance lobby, latched them open and disabled the alarm. Shand listened, not a sound from within. He traced the wires from the door to the alarm panel. Everything looked untouched. George went to push through the swing doors into the customer lobby, but Shand motioned for him to wait. He’d go first. Just in case.

  He opened the door to the left a crack and peered inside. No sound, no movement. He pushed it farther. It was one of those old banks, more like a substantial house than a purpose built bank. Panelled walls, high ceilings, fancy cornices – probably Edwardian or late Victorian – the counter to ceiling glass wall the only sacrifice to the modern era. That and the ATM.

  And it was small. Only three cashier positions. A small bank in a small market town. Would it carry enough cash to make all that effort worthwhile? Abduction, burial, murder?

  Shand slid through, held the door open for the others, then hurried to the counter. He peered through the glass into the back office. Desks, computers, cupboards. Everything neat and tidy.

  George unlocked the panelled door from the customer lobby into the staff area. Shand followed. The floor was as tidy as the desks. No discarded wrappers from bundles of notes, or waste bins kicked over in someone’s haste to get away.

  “Where’s the vault?” he whispered to George.

  George pointed towards a door at the back. “I’ve got to get the keys first.”

  Shand waited while George unlocked a cupboard and took out two large keys. Shand’s mood sunk. No one would waste time putting the vault keys back and locking them away.

  But then who’d go to all the trouble of burying someone alive only to cover their grave with a dead body?

  He followed George downstairs into a basement, along a corridor. Everything spotless; white walls, blue carpet. And at the end, a large metal door.

  “Get it open,” said Shand.

  George took his time, inserting one key, then the other, turning them both, then placing both hands around the circular handle, a twist, a tug then...

  Shand leaned forward, peering over George’s shoulder. The heavy door swung back, lights flickered on inside. “Anything missing?” he asked.

  Even as he said it his eyes alighted on the stack of notes on the far shelf. No one would have left that behind.

  He kicked his heels in the corridor as George shuffled along the shelves of the small vault. Maybe they’d abandoned the robbery after killing Annabel? Didn’t that make sense? They’d planned to have the entire weekend to rob the bank, then along comes Annabel and all plans go out the window. There’s no time. They have to escape.

  But that didn’t accord with what he’d seen at the circle. They had had time. They’d stopped to arrange the body. Why? There was a wood fifty yards away. They could have hidden the body there. The chalk track even led into the wood, they could have driven down.

  But they hadn’t. Instead, they’d left the body where it couldn’t be missed. Why? What was it that he was failing to see?

  “Everything’s here,” said George in a quiet voice from the vault entrance. “I can’t check the deposit boxes without the owner’s keys, but none have been tampered with.”

  Shand didn’t bother to look, if the safety deposit boxes had been a target they would have been drilled out. No one would have wasted time picking locks.

  Unless…

&nb
sp; A sudden idea. “Did the Marchant’s have a safety deposit box?”

  “No,” said George. “I’m not sure where they banked, but it wasn’t here.”

  Shand sighed. His one last throw. He looked at George, standing forlornly in the doorway to his vault, and felt even worse.

  “I owe you an apology, Mr. Benson. I thought I knew what was happening here. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

  ~

  Shand arranged for George to be driven back to Sherminster hospital, then phoned Bob Taylor to find out how the house-to-house was progressing.

  “Slowly,” said Taylor. “Not everyone’s at home and those that are, didn’t see anything. But we have tracked down Annabel’s husband. He’s on his way home. Should be back at two.”

  Shand checked his watch.

  “Is there a pub in the village?” he asked.

  “The first thing we located, sir. The Royal Oak. It’s on the village green, you can’t miss it.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you there at one to discuss progress.”

  Shand returned to Athelcott, stopping at the stone circle first. SOCO was just leaving for the Benson’s house. Still no murder weapon or anything that could in any way be described as a breakthrough. The duct tape had been sent away for analysis. Along with fifteen cigarette ends of assorted vintage.

  “Doubt if any relate to the case, but it’s worth a try,” SOCO said. “As for tyre tracks, if someone had taped the track off this morning…”

  “I know,” said Shand. “I was just about to arrange it when … you know.”

  “Too bad. The track itself wouldn’t take much of an impression – it’s rammed chalk – but the verges are soft. If they had as much trouble backing out as our lot did this morning we might have found something we could use.”

  Shand tried to convince himself that the gang hadn’t left any tracks. The way they’d stopped to arrange the body, the way they’d replaced each turf, the way they’d worn gloves and masks at the Benson house. They were careful. They would have backed out slowly, keeping well away from any soft earth.

  “I’d like a fingertip search of the area,” asked SOCO. “If you’ve got the manpower. There’s all the long grass between the stones and the track. And the track itself, plus the verges, all the way down to the road. You never know.”