An Unsafe Pair of Hands

by Chris Dolley

  He’d then drag her body onto Helena’s grave and leave, knowing the police would link the two crimes and waste days trying to figure out a connection that didn’t exist. And, even better, if they caught Helena’s abductors why bother to look any further?

  He wrote it down while it was still fresh in his mind, writing so fast that passages became illegible and he had to go over them again, hoping that, unlike a dream, everything would still make sense in the morning.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Shand slept fitfully, haunted by a recurring dream that he’d blurted out a false lead in the middle of a press conference.

  Then he’d wake up and the truth would overwhelm him.

  By four o’clock he was a wreck. A ‘wide-awake, staring at a hotel ceiling’ wreck who couldn’t stop going over and over what he’d done and what he should have done.

  Why invent such a ridiculous story about an asylum seeker? It was so unlike him. He was the safe pair of hands.

  Then came the realisation.

  Perhaps it wasn’t so out of character. Hadn’t most of his adult life been spent trying to please others? Sacrificing everything for his job, never turning down a request to work late, cancelling holidays.

  What was his asylum seeker remark but an extension of that? A ridiculous, senseless attempt to please others by giving them something they wanted to hear.

  ~

  Shand was up early. The room, the bed, the inactivity was driving him crazy. He had to do something.

  He drove to the stone circle, arriving just after first light. It was drizzling. He turned his coat collar up and strode along the chalk track, his mind already in the woods, going through his theory from the night before.

  He stopped at the point the track entered the woods and looked back. The circle was visible, grey shapes against a grey sky. He imagined standing there the night before. What would he do next? Crouch down by the track’s edge, use that branch for cover?

  He studied the ground. It didn’t look disturbed though the earth was soft. He wondered if he should call SOCO back. A thought soon scotched. He needed Forensics to concentrate on what they already had. Everything else could wait.

  And where did this chalk track go? It looked well maintained. The edges were distinct – no brambles or low branches encroached from the wood. Could it wind back to the village?

  Shand followed the track deeper into the woods. After about a mile the trees gave way to fields and the track descended into what looked like a huge grassy bowl carved into the hillside. There were buildings in the distance, a large farm complex by the look of it, and the track curved down towards it.

  Shand tried to take his bearings. Where was the village? He walked a bit farther. There was a spur of hillside to his left that blocked his view. He was sure the village was on the other side. In which case, where was this farm? Had it been overlooked in the house-to-house?

  He swung around, scanning the sweep of the hills and woods. How many other houses had been missed? He needed a map. Yesterday, he’d assumed this track was a dead-end. He hadn’t expected to find people living at the other end.

  Shand looked at his watch. He’d arranged to meet Marcus at the circle in fifteen minutes. Interviewing the people at the farm would have to wait.

  ~

  He found DC Ashenden waiting by his car, almost bouncing to attention as soon as Shand appeared out of the drizzle.

  “I want you to go to Sherminster, Marcus,” said Shand. “I’ve prepared a list of names and addresses. I want you to talk to all of them. Find out what George Benson’s demeanour was that evening. I want to know if anyone phoned him or talked to him or gave him a message. Anything at all. If these people buried his wife, they had to get in touch with him. So I’m looking for a point of contact. A call, a stranger coming up to him, any unexplained absences. And trace the taxi driver who took him to his friend’s house. Get a confirmation of the time. I’ve written everything down.”

  Shand fished the two pages of notes from his car and handed them over.

  “About the Moleman, sir. Did you want my report now or later?”

  “What did you find?”

  “I think it’s local kids, sir, targeting newcomer’s gardens. At least that’s what it looks like. Though the kids deny all knowledge.”

  “As they would,” said Shand

  “Exactly, sir. But…” Ashenden hesitated.

  “But what?”

  “It’s a strange sort of vandalism, sir. It’s not mindless, it’s … it’s weird. Like they dig up shrubs and swap them around, rearrange flower beds, or they dig holes in someone’s lawn and then arrange the piles of soil in a pattern – like a crop circle made of mole hills.”

  It still sounded like kids to Shand. Older kids, students probably.

  “Has anyone been hurt?” asked Shand. “Any hint of violence towards animals?”

  “No. As I said, it’s just weird.”

  Shand was just about to dismiss the Moleman when something struck him.

  “I take it this Moleman only comes out at night?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Any gardens hit Friday night?”

  “Ah,” said the constable, smiling as the significance hit him. “I don’t think so, sir, but I haven’t talked to everyone.”

  “Add that to your ‘to do’ list when you come back from Sherminster.”

  And with luck, thought Shand, our Moleman will have been both active and highly observant on Friday night. It was about time they had a breakthrough.

  ~

  The breakthrough was closer than Shand realised. It was waiting for him when he returned to Sturton. Six pieces of paper lay on his desk. He grabbed the top copy. It was the phone log. They’d found four accounts – two fixed lines and two mobiles. The Marchant house, the Benson house and Gabriel and Annabel’s mobiles.

  No mobiles though for George or Helena. A disappointment. He’d been hoping to see a late-night call to George from the kidnappers, a number he could trace.

  He flipped through the pages. He found Helena’s call to Ursula Montacute – 10:30, duration two minutes and twenty seconds. Then nothing. No call in or out until three the next afternoon. He scanned back. The previous call had been at six thirty, a local number.

  Next page. Gabriel’s mobile. A mass of numbers covering two pages, front and back. Every call in or out for the last week. Shand skimmed through the calls for Friday night. There was a gap. 7:34 p.m. to 6:47 a.m. Shand swore. If only there’d been a call around the time of the murder - they could have traced where Gabriel was. But now... The man could have been anywhere – London or Athelcott – it was only a three and a half-hour drive between the two.

  Next came Annabel’s mobile. A page of calls. Shand skipped to the end. 8:47 p.m., an incoming call, duration seventeen minutes.

  Last came the Marchant’s fixed line. A half page of calls. He skimmed back, looking for calls on Friday night, and there it was. An incoming call logged at 11:59 p.m., duration three minutes and sixteen seconds.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  There was a phone number attached to the log entry. A local number according to the area code. Shand dived towards his computer. He tapped at the keyboard, scrolling through the screens, waiting for the right one to come up. There it was. He tapped in the phone number and waited, the cursor blinking like a metronome – yes, I have an address; no, I don’t.

  Seconds passed. Had the machine died? Should he re-boot?

  Then up it came. Name and address: public phone box, The Green, Athelcott.

  Shand grabbed the phone. He wanted Forensics at the phone box now. Then he was out into the corridor, searching for the first face he recognised.

  “I need all these numbers traced,” he said, handing over the phone logs. “Names and addresses. And then go through and make a list of anyone who appears on Annabel’s log more than once. I want to know who her close friends were.”

  He walked farther along the corridor until
he found Taylor.

  “Bob,” he said. “We’ve found a phone call to Annabel Marchant at midnight the night she was killed. It was made from the call box on the green at Athelcott. Get a log of all calls made to or from that box since Friday. Go to the phone company if necessary and sit on them. We need that log now. I’ll see you at the green.”

  ~

  Shand arrived at the green three minutes before the forensic team. Three minutes in which he secured the scene and inspected the ground outside the box. Asphalt and concrete. No chance of a print.

  “Well,” said SOCO, smiling as he stepped out of his van. “Look at this, boys. A phone box, and it’s still intact. I was expecting to find it all dug up by now. You’re slipping, Mr. Shand.”

  Shand forced a smile and wondered how much more of this he had to endure.

  “Phone call was made from this box at midnight Friday night,” he said. “To the victim’s house. Six minutes later she was seen walking to the green and forty minutes after that – maybe less, maybe more – she was dead.”

  Shand wondered how many people had used the box since. The phone logs should help. But it wouldn’t be exhaustive. Anyone could have gone inside. And not just to make a phone call.

  He hovered on the periphery, watching and waiting as white-suited men brushed and dusted.

  “Good news and bad,” said SOCO a short time later. “We’ve found prints, but there’s a lot of them. Many are probably too smudged to generate a good match, but we’ll process as many as we can.”

  “What about the coins?”

  “We’re opening the box now.”

  “You’ve told them not to shake the coins?” asked Shand. The killer’s coin has to be near the top. Maybe at the top if the phone log confirmed no one had used the phone since.

  “We know our job,” said SOCO.

  Shand waited. He wanted the coins dusted now. The prints on the door and the hand set could have been left by anyone at anytime, but those on the coins had a closer connection to the killer. And they were so easy to overlook. A killer might remember to wear gloves in the box, but would he remember to wipe his old prints off a coin?

  This one had.

  Shand closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. He’d had such hopes. But the second of the three coins found resting on the top layer of the cash box had been wiped clean. It had to be the killer’s. Who else would clean a coin? Which meant they probably wore gloves as well. Which meant…

  Dead-end.

  Another one.

  He waited for Taylor to arrive, clinging to a dwindling but optimistic hope that maybe, just maybe, there’d be a second phone call from the box around midnight. A witness, or the killer deciding to ring home to check his answerphone.

  No such luck. Taylor showed him the logs. One call at 9:47 Saturday night, another at 7:12 the previous evening.

  “I’ve brought the Marchant’s phone records,” said Taylor. “They’ve been sorted by caller.”

  Shand took them and glanced through. He was hoping to find a male name at the top – the lover, the killer who had lured Annabel from her home – but was disappointed. A Ms. Jacintha Maybury headed the list – for both the fixed line and Annabel’s mobile.

  “Ms. Maybury, it is,” said Shand. “If Annabel confided in anyone, this one’s got to be favourite.”

  ~

  Larkspur House was on Upper Street, overlooking the green. An old thatched property with an undulating roof and what looked, at first, to be a traditional cottage garden – stepping stones curving through a small front lawn bordered by overcrowded perennials and shrubs. But, looking closer, Shand could see a strange mix of statues and earthenware pots – some of a very unusual design and colour – peeking out from amongst the border plants.

  Jacintha Maybury opened the door. She was wearing a long, flowing dress with a heavy woollen shawl draped around her shoulders. Her hair was strangely unkempt – or maybe fashionably unkempt – part of it exploded over her shoulders and part was gathered up at the top, fixed by something that looked, to Shand, like an office bulldog clip.

  She showed them inside. “Though I don’t know what help I can be, chief inspector. I told your man yesterday. I didn’t see a thing.”

  Inside, the house was disorganised and cluttered, filled by an eclectic collection of what looked to Shand like ethnic craft of unknown ethnicity. It was everywhere. It adorned the walls, hung from beams and covered the furniture. He’d never seen a sofa with so many throw cushions. Or so much macramé.

  Artist, thought Shand, or maybe ex-model – Jacintha Maybury didn’t so much walk across a room as flow between poses.

  “Dreadful news, chief inspector,” she said, scooping up a longhaired white cat from an armchair. “And poor Helena as well. You think you’re safe in the country, don’t you? But these days…”

  “Quite,” said Shand, taking the cat’s chair. “We’d like to ask you some questions regarding Mrs. Marchant’s personal life.”

  “Oh,” she looked surprised. “I’ll help in any way I can, of course, but…”

  “Did Mrs. Marchant have a lover?”

  She looked startled. “Why? I don’t see ... why on earth would you ask me that?”

  “I’m sorry to be blunt, Ms. Maybury, but it’s important.”

  “I don’t see how. I thought you had a suspect. The asylum seeker. It was in all the papers.”

  “You shouldn’t believe everything you read in papers, miss,” said Taylor.

  Shand glanced over at his sergeant, wondering for a second who the remark was aimed at.

  “Did Mrs. Marchant know anyone at the camp?” he asked, determined to bury the subject as quickly as possible.

  “Of course not, she had no reason.”

  Thank God for that, thought Shand, subject buried now move on.

  “You see,” he said, leaning forward in his armchair and trying a softer, more conversational approach. “We know now that someone rang Mrs. Marchant at midnight. We think they persuaded her to come out and meet them. Who do you think that person could be?”

  She shrugged. “I haven’t a clue, chief inspector.”

  “Would she leave her house in the middle of the night to meet a stranger?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then who?”

  She thought for a while, stroking the purring cat on her lap.

  “Well, me, I think. Not that I did. And Gabriel, of course, and Pippa.”

  “Pippa?” asked Taylor.

  “Her daughter. She’s away at Uni. Was away. I think she drove back last night. Poor girl.”

  “Who else?” asked Shand.

  “Her parents, though I hardly think they’d drive down from Norfolk. Andrew’s not been well. And this can’t have helped.”

  “What about people on this list?” asked Shand, reaching out to hand her the list of Annabel’s callers. “Take your time. Anyone there that she was particularly friendly with?”

  She squinted at the list, then held it out at arm’s length.

  “Oh, there’s Gabe, I suppose. Gabe Marsh.”

  “Gabe?” said Shand. “As in … Gabriel?”

  “Yes, though everyone calls him Gabe. Something you’d never try with Gabriel Marchant. He’s very correct.”

  Shand just sat there. How many more Gabriels were there? Were they like London buses? You wait forty years, then three come along at once?

  “He doesn’t work in London, does he?”

  “Yes. He runs a property development company.”

  Shand was stunned. A part of him wanted to shelve the murder investigation and ask whereabouts in London Marsh worked. Could he know Anne? Were they sleeping together?

  Jacintha was still talking. “He’s Gabriel’s friend really. Not Annabel’s. The two of them are as thick as thieves. Not that they are thieves ... Chief Inspector?”

  “What?” Shand was miles away. Ninety-three to be exact. Prowling his London flat trying to remember if Anne had ever had a property d
eveloper for a client. She’d had a six-month contract with an estate agent in Mayfair a few years back. Could she have met Marsh there?

  Reluctantly, he dragged himself back to Athelcott. “Sorry. Anyone else on the list?”

  Jacintha peered at the list for another ten seconds. “I don’t recognise all these names. I’ve only known Annabel for two years, since she moved to Athelcott. Though,” she paused and looked at the list again. “There’s an address here in Harrow. That’s where Gabriel and Annabel moved from. Might be an old friend.”

  Shand took the list. The Harrow address belonged to a Ms. Frances Pauli. A mobile account. He ran his eye down the list again, concentrating on the male names. Gabe Marsh had rung Annabel several times, at the house and on her mobile. And she’d phoned him back.

  “You say that Marsh is primarily Gabriel’s friend?” asked Shand.

  “That’s right.”

  “There seem to be a lot of calls while Gabriel was away.”

  “Was there?” She looked genuinely surprised. Shand watched her brow furrow and then suddenly unwrinkle. “Oh, that’ll be the elections! They’re both standing for the parish council. So am I actually – a sort of joint ticket.”

  “Joint ticket?”

  “To clean up Athelcott.” She grimaced. “Gabe’s slogan, I’m afraid. I didn’t want to join, but Annabel persuaded me. The village does need a face-lift. It could be such a pretty little village, if people would only try a bit harder. Some people treat the place like a tip.”

  “Like Bill Acomb?” asked Taylor.

  “Especially Bill Acomb. Annabel thinks...” She stopped and corrected herself. “Annabel thought that the parish council should take the lead in improving the village. Have more flowers about the place, hanging baskets and communal planting. And, you know, get tougher with fly tippers, and farmers who leave mud on the roads and create those awful ruts on the grass verges. It’s not much to ask. And it seems so sensible.”