The Hill - Ben’s Story (Book One).: A Paranormal Murder Mystery Thriller. (Book One).

by Andrew M Stafford

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  Garraway made his way back to the crime scene. When investigating a murder, he often found that spending time at the scene on his own cleared his mind and allowed him to concentrate.

  He made his way to the hill and saw PCs Carter and Fleming patrolling the area making sure that nothing was disturbed. The hill had been cordoned off with police tape. He ducked under the tape and stood where Ben Walker's body had been found. It was three thirty in the afternoon, but it felt a lot later.

  Small talk was exchanged between Garraway and the constables. He preferred them not to be there as their presence interrupted his thoughts. He scrambled his way to the top of the hill to survey the area. For the first time he was taken in by the beauty of the woods. He listened to the sound of the trees swaying in the gentle breeze. A few birds were calling and he could hear the children in the nearby school. Perhaps Doug Plummer was right when he said the school shouldn’t have opened today.

  He sat his large frame down and closed his eyes. All of a sudden he was overwhelmed with a feeling of nausea. He held his head in his hands and waited for the feeling to pass. Unlike this morning, he wasn't sick. The nausea began to fade and was replaced by something else. He lay flat on the hill, with his eyes gently closed and the feeling turned into a sensation like something was trying to get his attention. It was the same feeling when he knew someone was watching him. It wasn't a bad feeling, but it was unsettling. The feeling slowly left him and he sat up. Opening his eyes he saw the two officers looking at him. Perhaps this was why he’d felt the sensation of someone looking at him.

  “Is everything alright sir?” asked Carter.

  “Everything's fine thank you,” replied Garraway as he made his way down the hill.

  “I was just taking a moment.”

  “If you ask me, this place gives me the willies,” added Fleming helpfully.

  “Yes, I know what you mean.”

  Walking back to the car he felt a crunching in his neck. He massaged the back of his head and thought about what had just happened. Shaking his head he continued back to his black Audi A5 which was parked nearby on Doncaster Road. He climbed in, started the engine and pulled away, carefully avoiding a badly parked silver Toyota Previa.

  Chapter six

  Southmead Hospital

  Monday 7th September

  Earlier that day

  Matthews had been waiting in the reception area of the Intensive Care Unit for half an hour. He was fighting a losing battling with a vending machine. The machine had been happy enough to take his money, but was not so forthcoming with the goods. He was starving and could have walked to the café at the hospital, but he didn’t want to risk the chance of missing the intensive care consultant who had been dealing with Elizabeth Mason.

  Just as he was about to tilt the machine, Dr Robert Clarke entered reception.

  Clarke offered his hand. “Sergeant Matthews, sorry to keep you waiting, it’s been a rather busy day.”

  “Can I see Elizabeth?” asked Matthews.

  “I would prefer if you didn’t, sergeant. She’s not awake, so there’s nothing she can help you with right now, plus her parents are at her bedside and as you can imagine, they’re rather distraught.”

  “Is there anything you can tell me?”

  “Only about her injuries. When she was brought in, she was suffering internal bleeding, she has a number of broken ribs and has taken a severe beating to her head.” Clarke paused for a second and then continued, “she is suffering an intracranial injury and so as you may appreciate, it may be some time until she is able to talk to you.”

  Matthews nodded. He removed a card from his wallet and handed it to the consultant.

  “I would be grateful if you could call me as soon as she comes round.”

  “To be honest with you, after what this girl has been through, I think she would prefer to forget whatever took place last night.”

  Matthews thanked the consultant and turned to walk out.

  “Sergeant, I almost forgot,” Clarke walked behind the reception desk and came back with a neatly folded pile of clothes wrapped in polythene.

  “I thought your people would be needing these,” he said as he handed the package to Matthews.

  “It’s the clothes she was wearing when she was admitted this morning.”

  “That’s very forward thinking of you,” said Matthews as he took the clothes from the consultant.

  “I am very surprised one of your highly paid detectives didn’t think of asking me for these earlier.”

  Idiot thought Matthews as he walked away.

  Chapter seven

  Avon and Somerset Police

  Kenneth Steele House

  The Incident Room

  4.12pm

  Monday 7th September

  Garraway parked his car outside the newly opened building which housed the incident rooms. The red brick building nestled amongst nondescript office complexes on a business estate. The building boasted four fully-equipped major incident rooms, briefing facilities and meeting quarters.

  Garraway entered incident room number two. The large office was teeming with detectives, police officers and civilian staff. He strolled the thoroughfare between desks and chairs, at the same time stepping over files which littered the floor. Health and Safety would have a field day he thought. He walked up to Sally Johnson and Andy Warrington, the Major Crime Investigation Officers, who were busy collating the information they had.

  “The board’s pretty empty,” said Garraway.

  “We know,” replied Warrington, “there’s not much we have to put on it yet, it’s early days.”

  Garraway knew he was right. The crime had been reported less than 12 hours ago, but he was secretly hoping that by now they would have found someone who had seen or heard something.

  Garraway spotted an early edition of the Bristol Post on a desk. As he’d expected, the case had made front page news. There had been requests for him to talk to the local media, but he didn’t want to speak to the public just yet. It was far too early. The requests had been deftly dealt with by the Police Department News and Information Team. He knew that before long there would be a press conference. He hated those things, but appreciated how important they were, as a well written announcement to the public often yielded useful information.

  He felt tired. It had been a long day and feeling sick earlier didn’t help. He slumped in a chair and picked up the newspaper. The front page had a colour photograph of the crime scene. PCs Carter and Fleming were in the picture looking expressionless and the forensics team were in the rear of the image doing their thing. Dominating the picture was the hill. He stared at it and thought about the strange feeling that came over him earlier.

  He rubbed his face and yawned.

  “You look knackered, if you don’t mind me saying, sir,” said Warrington.

  Garraway looked at him and smiled. “I’m not feeling my best.”

  “Why don’t you head home?” suggested Johnson.

  “I think maybe I will. Call me if anything comes up.” He stood up, looked around and then left the office.

  Chapter eight

  The Foundation

  7pm

  Monday 7th September

  Daniel Boyd had called a meeting. He’d sent texts to Seb, Greeny and Mossy and asked them to contact John, Carla and Charlotte so all would be present. Seb replied saying that no one had John's number. In fact no one had ever seen him use a phone, so perhaps he didn't have one. Greeny had sent a message to Charlotte, but it had been pending delivery and eventually returned unsent. Her phone must have been turned off. Greeny didn't have Carla's number, he had never needed to contact her.

  No one spoke as the four of them stood in the doorway of the Foundation looking tired and scared. Eventually Mossy turned to Boyd and asked him what the plan was. Boyd had been thinking hard about what to do. All he cared about was not getting caught.

  “The plan is, if an
y of us get picked up by The Bill, then we don't grass on each other.”

  “Is that it, is that the plan?” shouted Greeny. Boyd stared down at him.

  “That works well for you” Greeny continued, “you’re the one who bloody killed him and why the fuck did you do that any way, what's the matter with you?”

  Boyd pinned him against a wall. “How do you know it wasn't you kicking the shit out of him that didn't kill him in the first place?”

  Greeny stared at Boyd and said nothing.

  “You two need to keep your voices down. If anyone hears you shouting your mouths off, then we've all had it,” said Mossy.

  Boyd let go of Greeny who slumped against the wall.

  “Danny’s right,” said Seb. “We all need to look out for each other and if any of us get picked up we gotta keep schtum.”

  “I'm scared,” said Mossy, “I mean really scared.” He was the first to admit it. “I don't know how I got myself mixed up in all of this.”

  “Well you seemed happy enough kicking seven bells of shit out of him last night,” said Greeny.

  “Look,” said Seb, “the best thing to do is lose contact with each other, like we never knew each other. Delete all contacts from our phones, block each other on Facebook and never see each other again.”

  Seb waited for someone to say something, but no one did. “It's the only way.”

  “What about the girls?” asked Boyd.

  “Well I don't think Charlotte will want anything to do with me again and I don't suppose Carla will either.”

  “Why did Carla shout ‘police’ last night? There were no police.” asked Seb.

  “Dunno,” said Greeny, “I guess she thought she saw them.”

  It seemed a simple enough plan and they had convinced one another that nothing could go wrong. They had seen no one in the woods and the nearby adventure playground had been empty, so there had been no witnesses. If Carla had seen the police then it would have been 'game over' by now. They hoped that the girls were as scared as they were and would keep quiet about the whole thing. Greeny said he would keep trying to contact Charlotte to let her know about the plan.

  As for John, they just had to hope for the best.

  And that was it. They went their separate ways and wouldn't see each other again for three years.

  Chapter nine

  The Incident Room

  9.30am

  Tuesday 8th September

  Garraway answered his phone when he saw it was Gillian West calling.

  “What have you got for me?”

  “Good morning to you too,” replied West sarcastically.

  Garraway apologised and she continued. “It's not great news. We've heard back from the lab and we can't match the DNA from the blood on the rock to anyone on file.”

  “So perhaps the rock was handled by someone before the murder, someone else who inadvertently got their blood on the rock and was nothing to do with what happened,” suggested Garraway.

  “I think not, there's something else. I've seen the pathologist report and there aren’t any great surprises about how Ben Walker died, it was definitely the rock that killed him, but the pathologist found something we didn't expect.”

  “Carry on,” said Garraway in an inquisitive tone.

  “The pathologist found saliva in Ben Walker's hair.”

  “Saliva?” replied Garraway, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes, saliva,”

  Garraway said nothing, pressuring her to continue.

  “The pathologist took it upon himself to get a DNA report on the saliva and unfortunately it doesn't match anyone we know but.......... it does match the blood found on the rock.”

  Garraway stood in silence and thought about what she had just told him.

  “Thank you Gillian, how extremely interesting.” He asked her to email the pathologist report, thanked her again and hung up.

  Just as Garraway finished the conversation, Matthews entered the incident room with a package under his arm.

  “Good morning Matthews, late night was it?” asked Garraway as he looked at the clock on the wall. Matthews ignored his remark and sat down at the desk. Garraway told him the news he'd just heard from West.

  “Excellent sir. So we definitely have DNA to match to the killer.”

  “Yes we do. The only thing is we don't have a killer to match the DNA.”

  “Well that could all change sir, I've just been informed of a stolen vehicle, a Toyota Previa which was taken on Sunday night from the High Street in Kingswood.”

  “And, how does the stolen Previa help us?”

  “It's been found sir, and it's been found on Doncaster Road. A resident was suspicious as she didn't recognise it, and it had been badly parked……… the resident is part of The Neighbourhood Watch.”

  “Thank the Lord for The Neighbourhood Watch!” exclaimed Garraway with his hands in the air.

  “And, the owner of the stolen car said he saw the thief drive off in the vehicle,” continued Matthews.

  “Did he get a good look?”

  “Apparently no, not a great look, the thief was wearing a hoody so most of his face was concealed.”

  Garraway nodded thoughtfully.

  “Forensics are dusting it for prints and after that they’ll be over the vehicle with a fine tooth comb.”

  “Perhaps now we're getting somewhere,” said Garraway hopefully.

  Matthews smiled.

  He put down the package given to him by Dr Clarke the day before.

  “It's the girl’s clothes.”

  “Thank you Matthews. Let’s hope Gillian’s team can find something useful.”

  “What’s the name of the owner of the Previa?” asked Garraway.

  Matthews looked in his notebook, “It’s a Mr Paul Jackson, sir.”

  “I think we need to speak with Mr Jackson, see if there is anything else he can remember about the theft.”

  “I’m on it,” replied Matthews.

  Later that morning Garraway and Matthews were in Paul Jackson’s office. Jackson was an accountant running a small business in Fishponds in the east of the city.

  “So, two detectives are interested in my car, eh?” said Jackson. “I wish the police were more interested in dealing with it when I reported it stolen,” he continued.

  “Perhaps it wouldn’t have been stolen in the first place if you hadn’t left the keys in the ignition and the engine running,” replied Garraway in a calm, yet smug tone.

  Jackson looked embarrassed, “I was in a bit of a rush, and I wasn’t thinking,” he replied, knowing how stupid he had been.

  “Anyway,” continued Garraway, “as you have probably heard there was a murder close to where your vehicle was found. This may be coincidence, or the murderer or murderers could have stolen your car and driven it to Badock’s Wood.”

  Jackson sat in silence.

  “Is there anything you remember about the person who stole your car?” asked Matthews.

  “I’ve already been through all of this with the police officer earlier this morning.”

  “We know,” continued Matthews, “but the police officer was taking a statement because your car had been stolen, whereas we’re investigating a murder and there is a possibility you saw the murderer.”

  “OK, but I can only tell you what I told him.”

  Jackson went over the whole story again, trying his hardest to recall the thief’s face, but his description was as vague as it had been when he’d described Daniel Boyd to the officer earlier that day.

  Garraway and Matthews had no further questions for Jackson and stood up to leave.

  “When do I get my car back?”

  “That depends,” replied Matthews, “forensics are currently checking your car for fingerprints and anything else they can find, and if it can be linked to the murder of Ben Walker, we may need to keep it for some time.”

  Jackson looked dispirited. “Good luck with the fingerprints.”

  Garraway and Matthe
ws stopped and looked at him.

  “My Previa will be teeming with them, I’ve just returned from the New Forest with a group of Boy Scouts, their fingerprints will be everywhere.”

  They thanked him and left the office.

  As they walked to the car park behind Jackson’s office, Garraway’s phone rang.

  “It’s Gillian West,” he said as he looked at his phone.

  “Hello Gillian, good news I hope,” said Garraway in a mock cheery voice.

  “It’s the girl’s clothes, we’ve had a chance to check them over and the first thing we know is that whoever was kicking Ben Walker, and we know there were a few involved, were not involved in kicking Elizabeth Mason.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “The boot marks on the girl’s clothes are different to the ones on the boy’s, also there are only one set of marks on the girl’s whilst there are at least three sets of boot marks on the boy’s.”

  Garraway stood beside his car and took in what West was telling him.

  “So it looks like the killer and the person who attacked Elizabeth are two different people.”

  “Unless, the killer’s boot marks weren’t on Ben’s body, but for some reason he decided to lay the boot in on the girl,” replied Gillian.

  “It doesn’t add up. Why would so many different people attack and kill one person, whilst only one person attacked the other?”

  “I’ve no idea, that’s your job.”

  “Thank you for reminding me of that,” said Garraway as he ended the call.