Jane Hetherington's Adventures In Detection

by Nina Jon

  “Did I tell you I…I lllloved you, Mac?” Monk sneered. “Yeah, well I say a lot of things I don’t mean,” he said, giving a little spin.

  This was the worst mistake he could have made. When his back was turned, MacCallum – driven half-mad with terror and betrayal, and the realisation that Monk would never leave him alone – pulled the screwdriver out of his jeans’ pocket, took one step forward and plunged it into Monk.

  “Mac! Don’t…”

  These were Monk’s last words. His knife fell from his hands. MacCallum pulled the screwdriver out and gave Monk a simple push and he fell over the edge of the car park and hit the pavement. When MacCallum stared down at the body spread-eagled below, he didn’t feel remorse. He didn’t feel anything.

  Up until that moment MacCallum could justify his actions, to himself at least – but he would never forgive himself for what happened next – what happened when he turned around and discovered he wasn’t alone.

  V

  The exhausted Cheung Kin eventually left the Chinese takeaway when his fiancée’s uncle finally drank himself into oblivion. By his watch it was three twenty-five a.m. He made the five-minute journey to the car park on foot, to fetch his car and drive back to his lodgings. His head was spinning when he slowly trudged up the stairs of the car park to the top floor, where his car was parked. He had just spent the last three hours being falsely accused of lying to his fiancée, of already having a family, of being dishonest in his intentions; and nothing he had said had stopped the tirade. If Foo Yong’s uncle hadn’t passed out, Cheung had no doubt he’d still be there, still trying to reason with him.

  He reached the upper floor of the car park and saw two men having an argument. One looked quite elderly. He didn’t want to get involved. He ignored the men and continued towards his own car. He heard a scuffle and a yell. When he turned around, he saw the younger of the two men fall backwards over the safety barrier. Thinking there must have been a terrible accident, he ran over to offer his assistance. It was only when MacCallum turned around that Cheung realised he had a bloody screwdriver in his hand.

  MacCallum and Cheung stared at each other. Both horrified, both petrified by the other’s presence at the scene. MacCallum noticed Cheung was holding car keys. He’d thought the car in the car park was Monk’s. But Monk must also have come on foot.

  “Christ!” he thought.

  Cheung stared at the screwdriver in MacCallum’s hand and the knife by his feet. He took a step backwards and then another one. He knew he’d just witnessed a murder. MacCallum tried to shout “Wait!” but could only manage: “Wa… wa…”

  Cheung turned and began to run. The murderer was an old man – he must be able to outrun him. To his surprise MacCallum ran after him. He ran quickly, far too quickly for an old man.

  “Stop!” MacCallum shouted, but Cheung didn’t stop, instead he screamed and ran faster.

  When Cheung reached the stairs he’d climbed minutes earlier, he dropped his car keys and car parking ticket in his panic. He shot a terrified backwards glance. The murderer was gaining on him. This caused him to stumble, to lose his footing and fall backwards down the stairs.

  When MacCallum reached Cheung, he was unconscious. His breathing was shallow. MacCallum sat by his side, praying for him to die, but he wouldn’t. He listened to his chest. He was still breathing. MacCallum knew he had no choice. He couldn’t risk this man regaining consciousness in a hospital bed. His eyes were closed when he ended Cheung’s life. He knew how to do it. He’d had to learn about the ways people kill each other for his role as Inspector Hubris.

  “Holy Mother of God, forgive me,” he said, without any trace of his stammer, as he put his gloved hands over Cheung’s mouth and nose.

  Once Cheung stopped breathing, MacCallum picked the body up and threw it over his shoulder. The man was small and slightly built. MacCallum carried the body over to the car, and laid it across the bonnet, while he returned to the stairwell for Cheung’s car keys and the ticket. He was shaking so much he almost couldn’t unlock the boot. Eventually it swung open, allowing MacCallum to gently place the body inside it before slamming the boot closed. Using the screwdriver he’d stabbed Monk with, he unscrewed the numberplates from the dead man’s car. He’d put them back when away from the car park – he’d just have to hope he didn’t pass any police cars in the meantime.

  He ran back down the stairwell, dabbing up any trace of blood he found. On his way back up the stairs, he retrieved Monk’s knife. When he climbed into the car, he pulled his hat even further down over his face, to further disguise his appearance. He’d done the same on the route he’d taken from his hotel to the car park, a journey which had involved many detours. He’d worn it pulled down in this way as he’d walk up the stairs of the multi-storey car park, in case he’d come across someone, which he hadn’t. He also wore a scarf pulled up over his mouth and chin. To anyone who’d seen him he would have appeared as nothing more than an old man wrapped up warmly against the cold of a winter night.

  He turned the engine on and quietly drove through the empty car park towards its exit. He drove with a hand up shielding his face, to further disguise his appearance, in case the car was picked up on any CCTV cameras not vandalised by Monk. At the barrier he inserted Cheung’s ticket and the barrier lifted.

  He turned left and parked by the side of the road, intending to pick up Monk’s body. He stepped out of the car and peered around the corner of the car park, but a young couple had already found the body. The man had his back to MacCallum. He stood by the body, speaking on his phone, while the woman knelt by it. Both visibly shook. He ran back to the car and hurriedly drove away, stopping briefly behind a tyre fitters to put the numberplates back on. There was little to trace Monk to him. If the police interviewed him, he’d admit to knowing him as an acquaintance only. The car he was driving was not his. He’d abandon it after disposing of the body.

  He drove to the quayside. He was lucky – he’d caught the tide. Hopefully the body would be carried out to sea, and never seen again.

  It was almost pitch black. He put both the screwdriver and knife inside a rubbish bag he found in a wheelie bin. He removed Cheung’s body from the boot of his car and lay it down on the quayside. He searched through the dead man’s pockets for any ID and found a passport, a driver’s licence and a mobile phone. He pocketed them to dispose of later, along with his clothes. He’d read somewhere that a Korean man was missing, presumed dead. Maybe if the body was found they might think it was him. The story had mentioned a missing front tooth. In his panic, he picked up a rock and dug out the dead man’s front left incisor. He threw the tooth in the sea, and then picked the rock up again, beginning to pummel the face of the dead man. He threw the rock into the harbour and rolled the body in after it. Then he vomited.

  VI

  DNA profiling confirmed the body washed up on the beach to be that of twenty-four-year-old Cheung Kin. After an extensive search of the area, Cheung Kin’s car was found parked inside the garage of a derelict pub, a short drive from the quayside. It had been there since the night of his disappearance. Tests on the car revealed it to have been recently driven by someone other than Cheung Kin. The geneticist carrying out the tests recognised the DNA profile. He’d seen the same DNA profile quite recently, and what’s more, he knew where.

  VII

  Three days after the body washed up on shore, Inspector Maryhill and two other officers were let into MacCallum’s cell, where they informed him that they had a warrant for his arrest for the murder of a Cheung Kin.

  “Do you wish for a solicitor to be present when we formally charge you?” Inspector Maryhill asked.

  MacCallum shook his head, picked up his notepad, and wrote, “Tell the man’s family I’m sorry. I’m so desperately sorry.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE SCENE IN COURT

  MacCallum’s arraignment took place the next day in the Southstoft Magistrates’ Court before magistrates Ant Dillard and Amy M
arston. The outside broadcast units were already in place when Ant Dillard arrived. As he drove to the court com- plex, he knew the media scrum would be twice as bad as last time. After parking as close to the court building as he could get, he didn’t stop to speak to anyone, but walked solemnly towards the court building. The media circus did not ignore him as they’d done the last time MacCallum appeared there. Instead they called out to him. “What do you think about this business, Mr Magis- trate?” one journalist yelled. “All a bit sordid, isn’t it?” What on earth does it matter what I think, he thought to himself, but he remained silent knowing that no good ever came out of allowing oneself to become involved in a confrontation with the press. He would have described the scene in the courtroom that day as a sad and desperate one. It was midday when MacCallum appeared before the magistrates’ bench.

  The day outside was bright and sunny, but that did nothing to help lift the sombre mood inside the courtroom. MacCallum was unable to talk at all. Even when asked to confirm his personal details, he couldn’t even pronounce a single word. Beside him, Russell Stone stood up. He composed himself, cleared his throat, and said, “I can confirm my client’s name is Callum MacCallum, he is twenty-four years of age and his current address is Her Majesty’s Prison, Southstoft.” Before he sat down, he looked over to his client, his friend.

  After MacCallum had been charged with the murder of Cheung Kin, Stone had immediately visited him in prison. ‘So you were there?’ he’d asked. MacCallum, sitting on the prison bed, his face buried in his hands, nodded. ‘You weren’t tricked into making the recording?’ MacCallum shook his head. ‘You weren’t framed?’ MacCallum looked away. ‘I wish you had been,’ Stone had said.

  While Russell Stone sat down, Ant Dillard glanced over to the public gallery. The scene there was a heartbreaking one. Foo Yong was inconsolable. She’d draped one arm over the railing in front of her and buried her head in it, gripping the rail with her other hand to steady herself. All he could see was the top of her head, a mane of black hair, bobbing up and down as she sobbed. Beside her, her uncle sat motionless. He stared straight ahead, oblivious of those around him. Now and then he bought his hand up to his forehead and pulled it away again in anguish, as though trying to rid himself of an image in his mind. The pain in his eyes betrayed the all-consuming guilt he bore.

  Ant Dillard looked at MacCallum – a man whose confession as to what had really happened on the top of that multi-storey car park, on the night of Harrison Monk’s death, had been shocking to read; but as Ant always said – who knows what any of us are capable of when the chips are down?

  “Callum MacCallum you are hereby formally committed to the Crown Court to be tried on the count of the murder of one Cheung Kin. Bail is refused,” Ant Dillard said; and on those words, with Foo Yong on her feet screaming, “Murderer!” and Ant Dillard calling for silence in court, Callum McCallum was led away.

  PANDORA’S BOX

  Jane Hetherington’s Adventures in Detection: 2

  CHAPTER ONE

  February

  With the arrival of a new and intriguing enquiry in her inbox, it looked as though the second month of Jane Hetherington’s new life as a private detective was going to be as busy and as interesting as the month before.

  ‘I don’t want to say too much in writing, but I need help,’ the e-mail began. ‘Someone is sending me anonymous letters, threatening to reveal something I did many years ago. If it gets out, my life’s over (I haven’t killed anyone – promise!) I need someone who can find out who’s sending the letters and put a stop to it. I don’t want the police involved and my husband mustn’t find out. Do you think you can help?’

  In her study, Jane leant back in her chair. Had anyone asked her a couple of months earlier what she thought private detective work entailed, she’d have replied – Oh, nothing more exciting than tracking down missing poodles, most likely. How wrong she’d been. A more eventful month than the previous, would be hard to imagine – or a more tragic one.

  As a widow in her sixties, Jane guessed she wasn’t a textbook private eye, and her decision to become one eccentric, some might say barmy. Her daughter, Adele, had been horrified at the idea.

  “What if something happens to you, mum?” she’d screamed.

  “I’m a shrewd enough operator not to put myself in any danger, Adele,” she’d replied calmly. “It comes down to this. Your father is dead. You have your own family, your own life. I’m sixty-three years of age. I might live for another twenty years. Even another forty. What am I to do with my time? I’m unlikely to find work at my age, even if I’m inclined to take on a job; and besides I’ve been born with a trait which allows me to solve the most impenetrable of mysteries. Let’s face it; I’ve been doing it all my life. Why not make use of it and keep myself gainfully self-employed and my little grey cells exercised, that’s what I say.”

  “Do you actually know how to wiretap, Jane?” her son-in-law Lee, had teased.

  “No, Lee I don’t. Nor do I have any idea how to plant a tracking device under a car; hack into private e-mails; or lay a bug. Nor do I have any intention of finding out,” she’d said. “For one it’s illegal, for two, it gets people into all sorts of trouble, and for three, where’s the challenge?”

  “Your stance might put off those who prefer their private detectives on the morally ambiguous side,” Lee’d joked.

  “That it might Lee, but underhand practices and modern technology can’t solve every case. Sometimes only brains and old-fashioned detective work will do it. My website will say the same thing.”

  In her study, she smiled when she thought back to this conversation. Lee might well be right, but so far her stance hadn’t seen her out of work, as her new enquiry proved.

  She stared out of her study window. She only hoped she could help the e-mail’s sender. There was something plaintiff about the words, yet at the same time, the writer was not obviously touting for sympathy. Jane couldn’t help wondering what on earth the poor woman had done all those years ago which anyone would care about now. The possibilities were endless. There was nothing for it. She’d take the case, if only to find out.

  She replied: ‘I do not consider myself to be a judgmental person, and I hope you will not find me to be one. I will listen to whatever it is you choose to tell me, with, I promise, a completely open mind and will do my best to help you. Before I can do that I must meet you. Please let me know when and where would be convenient for us to meet.

  Jane Hetherington.’

  A short exchange of e-mails followed, at the end of which both the time and venue of their first meeting was agreed.

  Only the first of February and a new client already, Jane thought whilst reaching over to answer her ringing telephone.

  “Jane, thank heavens you’re in,” the caller said.

  Jane recognised the voice immediately.

  “Mirabella! How lovely to hear from you!”

  Mirabella Dawson-Jones, the rector of Failsham, was a larger-than-life character, both physically and through the loquacious nature of her personality. Although hers had been a controversial appointment, her parishioners, of whom Jane was one, adored her and hearing her voice on the end of the phone always picked Jane’s spirits up enormously.

  “Jane, my dear, I’m sorry but this is going to have to be a short telephone conversation,” Mirabella said, barely pausing for breath. “I have a wedding to perform. I can’t be fashionably late, can I? I mean, I’m not the bride, am I? I’m officiating! Anyway, I’ve just come off the phone to the Bailey sisters.”

  Jane knew the three Bailey sisters well. As a long-term resident of Failsham, it would be impossible not to, for the Bailey sisters were not only three of Failsham’s most elderly residents, but three of its most eccentric.

  “I’ll admit to being somewhat harried when they called,” Mirabella continued. “I only answered the phone because I thought it was the verger asking where on earth I was. You’ll never guess what’s happened?”
>
  “What?” Jane said only to listen on in astonishment while Mirabella talked. “No!” was all she could say at the end of it.

  “That’s what I said. They really called to speak to Felix because he’s on the local council,” Mirabella said of her husband, “but he’s in the Lake District, and I know nothing about it. I said you may be able to help them, now you’re a private investigator.”

  “I will visit them immediately,” Jane said.

  “Would you, Jane? Would you? Oh my goodness, is that the time? I really must go, or I’ll be defrocked!”

  Call over, Jane left for the market square immediately, with but one thought on her mind – Spinsters in Peril!

  CHAPTER TWO

  Spinsters in Peril!

  I

  Very little changed in Failsham, that’s why Jane Hetherington loved it so.

  Naturally people had come and gone over the years – not least her dear husband Hugh, tragically taken from her the year before aged just sixty-four – but by and large Failsham remained the same idyllic British market town it had been when a youthful Hugh and Jane Hetherington first settled there.

  The building which encapsulated the town’s timelessness, the Failsham wool shop, stood in its market square. Jane arrived at it shortly after coming off the phone to Mirabella, to discover a closed sign prominently displayed on the shop’s door. Jane couldn’t remember the wool shop ever having closed early before. She knocked once and waited to be let in, rubbing her hands to keep warm. She looked up at the nearly white sky. Snow beckoned.

  After some time, the door swung open to reveal Nellie Bailey clutching a cotton handkerchief, which she waved in Jane’s face. “I can’t see any of us surviving this,” Nellie said, retreating into the wool shop, still waving her handkerchief in Jane’s direction, and bidding Jane to follow her, which she did.

  “Wars, famine, drought, disease, the depression, we’ve lived through it all,” the old lady said with a sigh. “But Failsham Council will be the death of us all.”