An Unsafe Pair of Hands

by Chris Dolley

  “How’s it going,” he asked the moment Taylor answered.

  “Not good, sir,” said Taylor. “I’ve talked to the staff at the restaurant and they say Gabriel was definitely there Friday night. He’s a regular apparently. Had a table booked for nine and didn’t leave until eleven thirty.”

  “They’re sure about that? Eleven thirty?”

  “I’ve seen the credit card receipt. It’s timed at 11:24.”

  “And they’re sure it was Gabriel?”

  “Positive. They showed me his picture from one of the Sunday papers. There’s no way Gabriel could have made it back to Athelcott before two.”

  Shand had to agree. Reluctantly. His imagination clutched at the passing straws of a late night helicopter dash from London, or the hiring of a double, or an identical twin…

  But he let them float on by.

  “I’m on my way to his hotel now,” said Taylor. “To see if they remember what time he got in.”

  Shand told his sergeant to keep digging and put the phone down. Another lead going nowhere. And an even bigger question left unanswered. Who was the Midnight Caller? If it wasn’t either of the two Gabriels, who was left? Jacintha Maybury? The mystery lover?

  That’s when he remembered Annabel’s computer. There had to be emails, letters – something to identify this mystery person. Had Forensics released their report yet?

  He rummaged through his in-tray and there it was – nestling under a pile of memos and office circulars. A one-page summary and a memory stick containing the files. According to the summary there were over a thousand emails and a couple of hundred letters, mostly business related: uninteresting correspondence with clubs, societies, mail order companies, builders and estate agents. And a hundred or so emails and letters to friends and family.

  They hadn’t read everything, but they had found several letters from Annabel to her solicitor concerning Bill Acomb. The lawsuit over the chicken was just the beginning. She wanted him out.

  Shand loaded the stick and read the letters. They went back eighteen months, starting with a request for legal advice and ending with a dossier cataloguing his crimes. She was gathering evidence for a series of prosecutions. Health and Safety violations, under-declaration of income, false accounting, noise pollution, anti-social behaviour. Anything she could find. She wanted him put out of business and gone.

  Was Bill Acomb aware of this?

  He sampled her other letters, scrolling through Annabel’s life in a series of literary snapshots – terse communications with tradesmen, loving letters to her daughter, amusing letters to friends. The latter perhaps the most revealing as it mentioned people in the village – mostly to their disadvantage. Annabel’s wit was biting, and often cruel.

  The Acombs and the Montacutes fared the worst. The Acombs were depicted as ignorant louts, ‘no better than travellers’ and the Montacutes as doddery dinosaurs, clinging to a lifestyle that no longer existed.

  But no sign of a lover. The only man who merited a warm mention was Gabe Marsh. But there was nothing in her letters that hinted at a deeper relationship.

  Had Annabel kept this lover a secret – even from her computer? Did he – or she – really exist?

  He looked again at Jacintha Maybury. She was unmarried. She was a close friend of Annabel’s. And there was no correspondence between them. Not even an email.

  Shand leaned forward and scrolled back through the folders. Nothing. Was that significant? Could Jacintha Maybury be both mystery lover and Midnight Caller?

  Or was it nothing at all – they lived close by and preferred the phone?

  A question interrupted by the shrill ring of Shand’s phone. It was the desk sergeant. He’d just received a call from Helena Benson. One of her garden spades was missing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “You have two spades?” asked Shand, gazing into the half-light of the old stables. Tools of all kinds hung from hooks on the far wall – forks, rakes, shears, a strimmer. And one spade.

  “We’re both keen gardeners, chief inspector,” said Helena. “A garden this size needs two people to work it.”

  It was a large garden. Enormous by London standards. Lawns, borders, trees and a huge vegetable plot in the far corner. Most of it already dug for the winter. Only a few lines of cabbages and leeks stood out against the deep black of the bare soil.

  “You don’t have a gardener?”

  “Of course not,” said Helena. “Why pay someone else to do what you love?”

  Indeed, thought Shand, wondering if he’d ever love gardening. Not that he’d had the opportunity – he’d lived in gardenless flats all his adult life. But maybe…

  There was something about the Benson house. Every time he visited, he left with the idea that this was the kind of the house he could be happy in – they could be happy in, he and Anne.

  “I didn’t think to look until today,” said Helena. “Then I saw it was missing. It should have been hanging on the same hook as the other.”

  Shand stepped inside the old stables. All signs of horses had long gone. Now it was an old stone shed, crammed with tools and boxes of garden produce. Cobwebs and strings of onions hung from nails in the low cross beams. It wasn’t a surprise SOCO hadn’t registered the missing spade. There was nothing obvious to suggest its removal.

  Shand examined the flooring. Dirt, by the look of it. Too dry and too hard to take a footprint. There’d be nothing here. And the men had worn gloves.

  “The man you thought went out the kitchen door,” said Shand. “Was he gone long?”

  “I don’t think so. Is this where you think he went?”

  It had to be, thought Shand. Did that mean he already knew where to look?

  He pointed at the stable door. “You don’t keep this locked?”

  “No,” said Helena. “We’ve never had to. The missing spade’s identical to the one there. If that helps. We bought them at the same time.”

  Shand hadn’t thought to ask. Somehow he’d assumed all spades were alike. He took a closer look. Wooden shaft, wooden handle. Was there a maker’s name?

  There was – of a kind – on the metal part of the shaft. Two words badly worn – one said ‘England,’ the other was mostly lost but ended in ‘ton.’

  Strange, thought Shand, they take the box from the Marchants, but the spade from the Bensons. Why? Didn’t the Marchants have a spade?

  “Why are you auditing George’s bank?” asked Helena.

  “Pardon,” said Shand, his mind still on the spade.

  “George rang. He’s very upset. He says you ordered an audit at his branch.”

  Helena looked accusingly at Shand.

  “I had to,” explained Shand. “The only motive I can find for your…” Words eluded him. She was standing in front of him. The victim. Her eyes accusing. Why are you hurting my husband? Haven’t we suffered enough? And now he had to take her back to Friday night with stark words like burial, and attack, and abduction. Wasn’t there a better word?

  He started to say ‘misfortune,’ then stopped. It sounded ridiculously Victorian. He took a deep breath and started again. “The only motive we can find for your abduction is that someone wanted to put pressure on your husband. You yourself thought it was a bank robbery.”

  Helena nodded, listening intently.

  “But according to your husband no one contacted him. Which doesn’t make sense. Unless...” He had to say it. “Unless your husband’s still being threatened. Is he Mrs. Benson?”

  Helena looked surprised. And shocked. Her mouth opened a good half-second before she found anything to say.

  “You think someone’s still trying to rob George’s bank?”

  “What do you think Mrs. Benson? Has your husband been more nervous than usual this last week?”

  He could see Helena thinking. She looked worried. Which made Shand feel even guiltier.

  Helena lowered her eyes. “I had noticed. But that’s because of what happened to me. I’m certain of it. He w
ould have told me if there was anything else.”

  “Even if it put you in danger? We’re looking at the possibility that someone wants George to do something for them. Something at the bank. And they’re using you as leverage. Now we can only help if George cooperates.”

  “Do you want me to speak to him, chief inspector?”

  “Someone has to, Mrs. Benson. Impress upon him that we’re going to catch these people. We already have some excellent leads. But we can catch them quicker with his help. If it’s a matter of protection, we can give him anything he wants – twenty-four hour armed guards, a safe house, the lot. Or if it’s some other hold they have over him – if they’ve already coerced him into breaking the law – we can talk about that too. We want the gang prosecuted, not George.”

  ‘Thank you, chief inspector,” said Helena, clasping his right hand in both of hers. “I’ll talk to George this evening.”

  ~

  It was midday and Shand was starving. He’d missed breakfast in his rush to get to the stone circle. And he wasn’t going to share his meal with a pack of inquisitive journalists. So he drove past the Royal Oak and onto the next village, assuaging his rumbling stomach with promises of something special. He’d hunt out a proper village pub with a roaring fire, draught cider, and a real restaurant.

  Eventually he found a place, following a sign off the main road that promised good pub grub in three miles. He ordered a steak and kidney pie, and braved a half pint of something that called itself rough farmhouse cider – a brew so cloudy that he couldn’t see his fingers on the far side of the glass.

  And tasted on the dry side of vinegar.

  But the food was excellent, and there wasn’t a journalist in sight. He sat and ate, and sipped, and tried to forget about Athelcott and the case that consumed him. Failing, of course, the case having all the survival instincts of an infant cuckoo, stretching, and pushing, and heaving every other thought from his head.

  Did he have enough to press charges? Should he order the arrest of Gabe Marsh, alert the ports?

  He was torn, and beset by the probability that whatever he did, it would be wrong. If he acted hastily, the man would be innocent. If he waited for more evidence, Gabe would disappear, and hindsight and Kevin Tresco would maul him unmercifully.

  This was his first case. He couldn’t afford any mistakes. He had to impress. He had to present the perfect case to the Crown Prosecution Service, something they couldn’t throw back at him later for lack of evidence.

  But neither could he wait too long. Witness’s memories would start to fail, and suspects would have more time to rehearse their alibis. Perhaps he should be more aggressive? Arrest anyone he suspected of not telling the whole truth, and lean on them until they did?

  Something that didn’t appeal to Peter Shand. The people who needed leaning on always had lawyers, which left who? People like George Benson who would make Shand feel like an unconscionable bully.

  Maybe he wasn’t cut out to be a detective? Self-doubt, there it was, perching on his shoulder waiting for an ingress. Give up, go home, go back to what you were good at.

  He drained his glass and went in search of the gents. Self-doubt followed, pointing out the phone on the wall. It’s a long time since she called.

  He lingered by the phone again on the way back. Vowing alternately to call and then not to call. As usual he made the wrong choice.

  Laughter – in the background of her office, and in the timbre of her voice as she answered her name. “Anne Cromwell,” she said, her voice bubbling.

  “It’s me,” he said, two quiet words, and suddenly the laughter stopped.

  She tried to cover it up, tried to sound upbeat and positive, but he’d heard the pause, the implicit groan, and in that brief second he was thrown – if not into despair, into somewhere very close.

  “Oh. I’ve been meaning to ring,” she said. “It’s chaos here, as usual.”

  Words deserted him – all the good words, leaving him with nothing words that filled the silences between his pain.

  “Did you go live as planned?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “Good.”

  Good. He breathed heavily into the phone – nerves – and quickly covered the mouthpiece with his hand.

  “I … I heard you were on the TV,” she said.

  “Did you see me?” Panic. Had she seen his debacle of a press conference? Followed by hope. Was she concerned for him?

  “No, I read about it in the papers.”

  “Ah.”

  “You must be very busy.”

  “Yes. Very busy.” His voice clicked with the dryness of his throat.

  A long silence and then, “Well, I’ve got to go now. Another meeting. I’ll ring you er … tomorrow. Bye.”

  “Bye,” he said to the dial tone.

  ~

  Shand slouched into his office and slumped into a chair. There was a message on his desk from Marcus.

  Can’t find Marsh. He might be in Birmingham, or Bristol, or possibly London. No one’s sure. They say he travels around a lot and rarely calls in.

  Shand rang Marcus.

  “Doesn’t he keep an office diary?”

  “Apparently not, sir. I received the impression he doesn’t like to commit much to paper.”

  Shand gave him Julia Draycott’s number.

  “See if she knows where he is. But be polite, she’s the Chief Constable’s daughter.”

  He stared at the files on his desk, trying to summon the energy to open one of them, or do something constructive, but all he could think about was Anne and that stupid phone call. Why couldn’t he say what he felt? Why did he morph into that inarticulate wimp? Why? Why? Why?

  And several more whys. All unanswered. He’d script the next conversation. Practice his delivery, add some jokes, show her what a good time he was having, and what a great person he was to be around.

  And every word would be punctuated by nervous clicks. He’d come across as manic and strange. Worse than the press conference, he’d be a wild-eyed, drug-crazed, heavy-breathing, husband-from-hell, cackling jokes down the phone line.

  He slumped even farther back in his chair, closed his eyes and let his head loll over the back.

  Not the most flattering position to be seen in by your boss but, given the day it had been, the inevitable one.

  “Shand?” said Wiggins. “Are you all right?”

  Shand opened one eye. The ceiling blinked back.

  “Postprandial breathing exercise, sir,” said Shand, not moving an inch. “Helps clear the mind after a meal.”

  “More American practices, eh, Shand?”

  “Samoan,” said Shand, slowly straightening his head and wondering why his imagination could reach such heights only to desert him whenever Anne was on the other end of the line.

  The purpose of the Chief Superintendent’s flying visit from Sherminster HQ soon became clear. He’d decided to take charge of the afternoon press conference – thank God – and wanted Shand to brief him.

  “Can I say an arrest is imminent?” he asked.

  Shand wanted to say, yes. In his eyes, an arrest had been imminent since the first second he’d viewed the body. That vital clue always just an hour away, waiting to be discovered.

  But, instead, he took the Chief Super through the case and its progress. It wasn’t what Wiggins wanted to hear. Nothing juicy to tell the press. No asylum seekers or Midnight Callers.

  “You can say we have an important lead concerning the murder weapon,” suggested Shand. “And that we’ve matched a set of fingerprints, but can’t reveal any more for obvious reasons.”

  Wiggins liked that. Mysterious yet professional. He jotted down the lines on a notepad and left.

  Shand shook off what was left of his earlier despondency, and threw himself back into his work. He’d keep busy, and not give himself time to think of anything else.

  Out came Annabel’s memory stick. There were still several folders he hadn’t looked at. On
e of them was entitled ‘Parish Council’ and contained dozens of files. Shand went through them all – the manifestos, the plans, the letters. Annabel meant to win, that was obvious, and by the tone and content of the letters, she didn’t care how. Shand was amazed, and wondered if the letters were libellous. She accused her fellow candidates of being incompetent and self-seeking, detailing instances where they’d ruled in favour of their friends, and generally casting dirt liberally around the community.

  Most of the criticism was aimed at Ursula Montacute. There was even a file on her, listing her failings which, according to Annabel, were legion. Mrs. Montacute ignored complaints against her friends, consistently blocked planning permission for houses, plotted to keep outsiders off the council, and ran an illegal fox hunt.

  It looked like Annabel had analysed every parish council decision for the past fifteen years looking for dirt. And failed to find it, decided Shand nearly thirty minutes later. Everything was anecdotal or circumstantial – a catalogue of innuendo and conjecture. Mud to be thrown with the hope that enough would stick, or deter Ursula from standing.

  Then he found something he wasn’t expecting. A folder entitled ‘6P,’ and inside it a scanned image of a bank statement.

  Ursula’s bank statement.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was dated a year ago. The Montacute’s current account. All their payments and receipts for June last year. How had Annabel got hold of that?

  Then Shand noticed the heading – Provincial Bank, Sturton – and made the link. George. His bank, his branch. Had Annabel somehow persuaded him to give her details of the Montacute’s finances?

  His mind joined up other dots. Was this the hold that the Marchants had over George? He’d been providing them with personal information about his customers? Something he wanted to stop, so they arranged for Helena to be abducted?

  No, too much of a leap, there’d have to be more to it than just providing bank details. Maybe that was how it started? A few bank statements, a few favours in return – money maybe – then came the real requests, dragging George deeper and deeper into their schemes until he threatened to pull out.