An Unsafe Pair of Hands

by Chris Dolley

  Still, it was an ill wind…

  And as Shand’s head began to clear, he could think of a much better reason to visit Athelcott.

  ~

  Bob Taylor was waiting in Bill Acomb’s yard. Shand called him over. There were a few questions he had to ask first.

  “Was the woman at the hotel Sabine Delacroix?”

  “Oh, yes. She’s been seeing Gabriel for about three months, nothing serious. Annabel didn’t know, but according to Gabriel she never loved him anyway.”

  “Gabriel told her that, did he?”

  “Probably just after telling her his wife didn’t understand him.”

  A cockerel crowed loudly – very loudly – the sound appearing to emanate from an outbuilding close to the Marchant fence line.

  “Now that,” said Taylor, “is a cock with a fine pair of lungs.”

  An unnatural pair of lungs, thought Shand. The sound was piercing.

  “What about Marsh?” he asked. “Did Gabriel ever talk about him?”

  “Never talked about anyone from the village, apparently. Annabel included.”

  Too close to home, thought Shand, his mind already turning to the coming interview.

  “Come on,” he said. “I want a word with Gabriel first.”

  “What about the cock?”

  “The cock hasn’t got a lawyer on his way over.”

  ~

  Gabriel Marchant threw the door open at the first knock. “I can still hear that damned creature. Why haven’t you stopped it?”

  “It’s being attended to,” said Shand angrily. “I’ve had enough lip from Bill Acomb this week. Making us look like fools by breaking out his chicken is the final straw. I want you to make a formal complaint, Mr. Marchant. It’ll strengthen our case. I want him done for contempt this time.”

  Gabriel Marchant relaxed and actually smiled.

  “Can we come in, Mr. Marchant? It won’t take long.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Shand followed Gabriel through to the living room. Still no sign of the lawyer. He wondered how much time he had. And how long he could keep up the pretence.

  “I take it Miss Delacroix phoned you about last night?” he asked, the moment everyone was seated.

  Gabriel jumped up, his earlier amiability shattered. Shand put his hand out.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Marchant, we’re not here about that. We know you were in London now. Miss Delacroix’s given you a cast iron alibi.”

  Gabriel sat down slowly, suspicion still etched in his face.

  “Oh, no!” said Shand, annoyed and going through the motions of searching his pockets. “I’ve left the complaint form in the car. Nip out and get it, Bob.”

  Taylor’s eyes flickered in surprise before he replied. “The white form?”

  “Of course the white form,” said Shand impatiently. “Now, come on, get off your backside and fetch it.”

  Shand waited for Taylor to leave before turning to Gabriel and raising his eyebrows.

  “I don’t know how you put up with these bolshy yokels. I really don’t. I’ve only been here a week and already I can’t wait to get back to London. I suppose you’ll be selling up now and looking for a place closer to civilisation?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “I would,” said Shand. “There are people in this village trying to fit you up. Did you know that?”

  Marchant looked puzzled.

  “And not just the locals. Some of your so-called friends as well.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Shand glanced left and right, beginning to enjoy his new conspiratorial role.

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this but…” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “A person who you know very well fed us this story about you and the Provincial Bank in Sturton.”

  “What? Who?”

  Shand tapped the side of his nose. If he’d had a moustache he’d probably have twirled it.

  “I’d lose my job if I told you. But they can’t stop me warning you, and I expect you know already know who I’m referring to anyway, don’t you?

  “Gabe?”

  Shand smiled. “Ironic isn’t it? Gabe Marsh goes missing, no one can find him, and yet my superiors say ‘shake up the husband.’” He shook his head. “No imagination. The wife’s dead, therefore the husband must have done it.”

  “Gabe’s gone missing?”

  “Like a shadow in the night. Gone. No sign of him or his passport. I don’t suppose he contacted you at all?”

  “No.”

  Gabriel was definitely thinking. Hard. His eyes had lost their focus and there was a distraction in his voice.

  “Not since he came round to see how you were, I suppose?” said Shand.

  “What?” said Gabriel, miles away.

  “I was just saying the last time you saw Marsh was probably when he came round to see how you were. He did come round, didn’t he?”

  “No, he phoned.”

  “Oh.” Shand feigned surprise. “I thought he would have called in person. Living over the road and being an old friend.”

  Shand wondered how much longer he had to push. Someone as paranoid as Gabriel should have been retaliating by now – listing all Marsh’s possible whereabouts and countering with accusations of his own.

  “No, he didn’t,” said Gabriel, suddenly snapping back. “What did he tell you about me and the bank?”

  “Sorry,” said Shand. “I really would lose my job if I told you.”

  Shand watched him, willing him to snap, pick up the phone and have it out with Marsh now.

  “He’s probably in Spain,” said Gabriel quietly.

  “That new development of his? The one in the Sierras?”

  “That’s the one. He was there last month. He intimated to me then it would make the perfect hideaway.”

  “He did, did he?” Shand tried another tack. “Some friend that Gabe Marsh. Did you know he gave us the name of that solicitor, you know the one that Annabel consulted?”

  Gabriel looked blank. Shand waited a little longer.

  “What solicitor?” asked Gabriel.

  “You know, the one she consulted recently?”

  Still blank, but Shand pressed on. “About the development at Sixpenny Barton?”

  “Annabel consulted a solicitor about that?”

  “I think she was worried about planning permission and the appeals process. So, Gabe said. They were working very closely together on the project. Whose idea was that by the way? To buy Sixpenny Barton and develop the land?”

  “Annabel’s. She always loved that house. And the location.”

  “Bit of a long shot though. How on earth were you going to get the Brigadess to sell?”

  “Money,” said Gabriel. “We were going to make them an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

  Shand resisted the sudden image of a horse’s head under the blanket and continued. “The Brigadess told me she’d never sell at any price.”

  “Everyone has a price, chief inspector.”

  Shand wasn’t so sure. He checked his watch. Any second a lawyer or Taylor could burst in. Time to play his last card.

  “You know, there’s still something that I can’t see,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “How you and Annabel could be planning such a huge venture in the middle of a divorce?”

  Gabriel exploded. Shand immediately raised both hands and apologised.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Marchant, but I’m only repeating what I was told. Annabel had found out about Sabine and was–”

  “Annabel never knew about Sabine!” Gabriel had risen, red-faced, to his feet.

  Shand fired his final volley. “Gabe did though. And he and Annabel had become very close.”

  Shand watched. Surely he’d done enough to poison Gabriel’s mind against Marsh? If the two men were working together, now was the time for Gabriel to crack and start incriminating his partner.

  He didn’t
. He turned on Shand. “Get out!” he shouted, stabbing a finger at the door. “Get out of my house!”

  Shand left.

  ~

  “Sorry about that, Bob. I had to do it to get Gabriel to open up.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Up to a point.” There was something about Gabriel Marchant that defied analysis. From the outset he’d behaved counter to Shand’s expectations. He’d never grieved. He’d been angry, defensive, paranoid. And yet given the opportunity to rail against Gabe Marsh, he’d spurned it. Why?

  He discussed it briefly with Taylor before giving up. “Come on, Bob. Time to arrest the chicken.”

  The chicken house was a ramshackle construction of corrugated iron and wood that looked like it had been built from driftwood on a dark night. Bizarrely, the building did not look out of place. A similar motif ran through the entire yard.

  A white cockerel perched in the doorway at the top of a rickety ramp. It stood up and flapped its wings as the two men approached.

  “Is that it?” asked Shand.

  Taylor shrugged his shoulders. “It’s the right sex.”

  The animal craned its neck and crowed. A reedy, pale imitation of the crow they’d heard earlier.

  “’Ere, what you doin’ with my chickens?”

  Bill Acomb hurried across the yard towards them, wiping what looked like the remains of his breakfast from his face.

  “Pretty expensive joke don’t you think?” shouted Shand, pointing at the cockerel. “What on earth did you think you’d achieve?”

  Bill Acomb’s weather-beaten face cracked into a sly smile. “I’ve done nothin’ illegal.”

  “What do you call breaking into a police pound?” asked Shand.

  The farmer scratched his chin. He appeared to be enjoying himself. “I reckon I’d call that … breakin’ and enterin’. Next question.”

  Shand shook his head in disbelief, then stabbed a finger in the direction of the white cockerel. “Is that the Athelcott One?”

  Bill Acomb peered around Shand’s shoulder and then smiled. “No, that ain’t ’im.”

  “Is he in the shed?” asked Taylor.

  “I ’as no idea where ’e is. I ain’t seen ’im since your lot took ’im away.”

  A cockerel crowed – unnaturally loud – the call emanating from inside the chicken shed.

  “You mind explaining what that was?” said Shand becoming impatient.

  “Now that was the Athelcott One. You can tell by the purity of the–”

  “Open the shed,” snapped Shand.

  “You won’t find ’im in there, inspector.”

  Acomb was still smiling – which Shand thought strange for a man on the verge of losing both his prize chicken and several hundred pounds in fines.

  “Why not?” asked Shand, feeling like a straight man feeding lines to a bucolic comic.

  The farmer’s smile expanded to show a set of imperfect and slightly blackened teeth. “It’s a recording, that’s all. I told you we’d get our revenge on Mr. Fancy Marchant, didn’t I?”

  His smile matured into a throaty laugh, eventually ending in a series of hacking coughs.

  “Turn it off,” said Shand. “Now!”

  Acomb unlatched a door at the back of the shed and retrieved a large portable radio cassette player. Both Shand and Taylor leaned in to check the rest of the shed was empty.

  “The cassette, please,” said Shand, holding his hand out.

  “It’s the only one I got. I needs it to train up the other cock. Show ’im ’ow it’s done.”

  “Don’t push it,” said Taylor, pulling the cassette recorder from the farmer’s grasp and removing the cassette. “You can have this back when you tell us what you’ve done with the Athelcott One.”

  “I don’t know nothin’. I was as surprised as you lot when I ’eard about it on the radio.”

  Shand looked closer at the white cockerel. Did they have a description of the Athelcott One? And was this really what he should he be doing in the middle of a murder enquiry?

  “Mr. Acomb,” he said. “Prove to me that that’s not the Athelcott One or we’re taking him with us.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “He can,” said Taylor, hooking a thumb at Shand. “Look at him. He’s a townie like Gabriel Marchant. Do you think he cares if he gets the wrong chicken?”

  Shand blinked, somewhat taken aback by the vehemence of Taylor’s outburst.

  Acomb wrestled with a pocket somewhere deep beneath his overalls. “Look!” he said, his hand suddenly flying out and thrusting a creased photograph in Shand’s face. “That’s the Athelcott One. See!”

  Shand did. The chicken in the picture was black with flecks of red and gold around the neck. And huge muscular legs.

  Bill Acomb’s smile returned. “Different breeds. That white one’s a Sussex, whereas old Athelcott, ’e’s an Italian Singing Chicken.”

  “Italian Singing Chicken,” repeated Taylor sceptically.

  “It’s a rare breed. Specially bred for its purity of note, length and loudness.”

  “Not to mention it pisses off the neighbours.”

  “Only the townies,” winked Bill.

  Shand felt that somewhere between the car and the yard he’d entered an alternate ruralverse. A feeling confirmed when the white cockerel crowed.

  “See,” said Bill. “You can tell ’e’s English by ’is accent.”

  ~

  “Sorry about that back there,” said Taylor as they walked across the yard. “I thought I’d get more out of him if I labelled you a townie.”

  Touché, thought Shand, noticing a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned. Someone had just opened the Acomb’s front door.

  “It’s Mark Acomb,” said Taylor. “Hey, Mark! I’ve been looking for you.”

  The figure slipped back inside and slammed the door.

  “I’ll go round the back,” shouted Taylor, already running. Shand sprinted for the front door. Why was the boy running?

  Shand flung the front door open and followed inside. Everything was dark and cluttered. Music blared from a radio, the smell of fried food everywhere. He followed the sound of running footsteps, snaking past the obstacle course of a hallway into the kitchen. The back door banged against its hinges. And Mark Acomb ran straight into the waiting arms of Bob Taylor.

  “Don’t be stupid, Mark!” shouted Taylor to the struggling youth who quickly gave up.

  “’ere what you doin’ to my boy?” shouted his father.

  “Your boy was trying to run away.”

  “Wasn’t!” said Mark, dusting himself off. “Just thought you were someone else, that’s all.”

  “A likely story,” said Taylor. “You’ve been avoiding me all week. Why? Where were you Friday night?”

  “Can’t remember.” The boy was looking everywhere but at Taylor.

  “Perhaps a trip to the station will refresh your memory,” said the sergeant.

  “You can’t arrest ’im for nothin’,” said his father.

  “He can,” said Taylor, hooking a thumb towards Shand who was beginning to dislike his unasked for role as urban bad cop. “Give him an excuse and he’ll have you locked up like that,” continued Taylor, snapping his fingers.

  Shand tried to look intimidating and felt the desire to pretend to chew gum. A bizarre image culled from childhood of what a really tough kid should look like.

  “I was in Sturton,” said Mark. “Drinking.”

  “Until when?”

  “Closing time, a bit after.”

  “And then what?”

  “I come home.”

  Shand made the calculations. Closing time on a Friday night would be eleven. Add on fifteen minutes drinking up time and another fifteen to say goodbye to his mates and find his car, couple that with a twenty-five minute drive home and you get Mark Acomb passing the village green very close to midnight on Friday night.

  “How’d you get home?” asked Taylor.

&nbs
p; “In the van.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What time did you get home?”

  Mark Acomb shrugged. “Dunno.”

  “Did you see Annabel Marchant?”

  “I didn’t see anyone. The place was dead as it always is.”

  “You saw no one walking on the green? Or by the phone box?”

  “I told you. I didn’t see them.”

  “Them?” asked Shand. “Why did you say ‘them’?”

  The boy shrugged. “No reason. Anyway what you hassling me for? You should be up at the circle looking for the missing boy.”

  “What missing boy?”

  “The one in the paper. Davy Perkins. He’s been missing a year now. And that’s where he was last seen. Right on the spot Annabel was found.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  It was plastered over the first three pages of the Echo. Stone Circle Claims Second Victim. An exclusive by Kevin Tresco. Intrepid Echo reporter uncovers secret history of killer stones.

  Shand could barely continue reading. There was even a picture of a sneering Kevin Tresco above his by-line. And such prose. Murder village rocked by new revelation. Terrified villagers flee death stones. Satanic serial killer murders by moonlight.

  Beneath the rhetoric, it was worse. Shand could see the germ of a real story. If any of it was true.

  “Did you know this Davy Perkins?” he asked Mark Acomb.

  “Yeah, it’s like it says there. He went missing about a year back. No one ever knew why.”

  This was worse than worse. A potential lead he’d overlooked. A potential lead found by Kevin bloody Tresco.

  He read on, avoiding as many adjectives as he could. A seventeen year-old boy, Davy Perkins, had gone missing on September 16th the previous year. He’d been last seen having an argument at the stone circle with two men. After that – nothing. His parents had filed a missing person report, but the police had found nothing. The boy had vanished. Gone. ‘Totally out of character,’ said his mother. ‘He was always such a nice boy, and he’d never forget my birthday.’

  Shand handed the newspaper back to Mark Acomb and strode towards his car.

  “Well?” said Taylor, hurrying after him.

  “Find another copy of the Echo. Discreetly. And get Marcus to check it out.”

  He paused by the door to his car and glanced back. It seemed stupid to take two cars everywhere. “Wait up, Bob,” he said, jogging back to his sergeant. “I’ll come with you.”