The Hill - Ben’s Story (Book One).: A Paranormal Murder Mystery Thriller. (Book One).
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As Anne turned the page of her magazine she reached for a glass of water.
The ten second occurrence had gone unnoticed.
Chapter twenty two
Badock’s Wood
3.54pm
Friday 10th October
Garraway wearily made his way down the hill. The pain in his joints was now subsiding. His phone in his shirt pocket was vibrating, he fumbled for it and saw it was Matthews. He welcomed the interruption as it brought him back to the real world.
“Good afternoon Sergeant Matthews, to what do I owe the pleasure of your dulcet tones?”
Matthews could hear Garraway’s voice was shaky.
“There’s been a suicide sir and we’ve been called in, so I’m afraid your day off has been cancelled.”
“For a suicide, on my day off?” snapped Garraway. “Why can’t a uniform PC and a uniform Sergeant deal with it?”
“Because it’s got your name all over it sir, and it may not be suicide.”
“Can you give me forty five minutes?” requested Garraway.
“Yes sir, I’ll pick you up at your place and I’ll explain on the way.”
Garraway returned home, had a quick shower and changed his clothes. Although he was feeling a little better, the pain in his joints was still there and he was still feeling extremely tired. He made a strong coffee whilst he waited for Matthews.
Joan wasn’t back and the house was quiet. He took the time to think about what had happened on the hill. He called Polly to let her know about the voice he had heard. Her phone went to voicemail so he left a message for her to call him back.
He could hear Matthews sounding his horn outside. He finished his coffee, grabbed his keys and left the house.
Garraway got in the front passenger seat and Matthews sped off.
“What’s this about?” asked Garraway.
“The suicide of Polly Ellis,” said Matthews.
Garraway did a double take and then his heart sank as he stared at Matthews without talking. He thought about how sad she’d sounded when they last spoke, but not to the degree of taking her life.
“Her flatmate found her in the bathroom, he called 999, but it was too late” Matthews continued.
“Did she leave a note?”
“She did, and this is why we’re involved.”
Garraway stared blankly out of the window.
“You need to read the note sir.” Garraway nodded.
Garraway was feeling uncomfortable about the suicide, not just because he liked Polly, but because she had somehow become tangled up in his enquiries. None of what they had discussed had been reported by Garraway as he didn’t feel it would be relevant to the case or even accepted as evidence. Mentioning voices from the dead via Polly wouldn’t make him look good. He knew he already had a reputation of being a maverick.
During the journey to her flat Garraway became overwhelmed with grief. He had only known her for a few weeks, but in that short space of time a close bond had formed between them. He struggled to hide his emotions from Matthews.
Polly’s road was teeming with police and paramedics. Matthews parked as close as he could. They got out, walked to her flat and climbed the stairs to the first floor where she’d lived. Garraway followed slowly behind Matthews. He walked like an old man. His arms and legs still ached.
Her upstairs hallway was busy with uniformed police constables.
“She’s in there sir,” said the WPC. Matthews and Garraway took it in turns to look around the bathroom door. Matthews had already seen her body and Garraway decided there was no need for him to go into the bathroom. He’d seen enough from the door. He walked across the hall and into Polly’s lounge and sat on the arm of her sofa. Garraway looked shocked and insipid.
“Are you OK sir?” asked Matthews
“Yes, I’m fine,” he replied.
“What’s in the note?”
Matthews handed it to him, sealed in a clear police evidence bag. Garraway squinted his eyes and read the note.
-----------------------------
To my dear mum, dad and all my wonderful friends. Please don’t think badly of me for what I have done. I know my Sarah is waiting for me because she has told me.
I cannot live without her.
I will be happy again when I am with her and hopefully you will eventually find happiness in your hearts despite what I have done.
I love you all so much but have been so sad these last couple of years since Sarah died and I would rather be with Sarah in her world than without her in mine.
Polly
Please tell Markland Garraway not to give up on Ben Walker. Accept the evidence you find no matter how it is presented.
-----------------------------
Garraway read the note three times. He wondered why Polly would have thought to mention him in her note. He looked at Matthews and shook his head.
“What a waste of a young life,” he sighed. He looked at the note again, then turned it over and looked on the other side. It was blank.
“What’s so important about this letter?” he asked Matthews.
“It’s the bit which mentions your name sir, can’t you see it?”
Garraway looked again and cast his eyes over the last section, this time he read it out loud.
“Please tell Markland Garraway not to give up on Ben Walker. Accept the evidence you find no matter how it is presented.”
He looked back at Matthews shaking his head. He felt tired and weary and was clearly missing something.
“It’s not the words sir,” said Matthews, “it’s the writing”.
Garraway looked again. He looked at the first four lines of the note and Polly’s signature and then he looked at the last line.
“It’s different handwriting,” he said.
“That’s right,” said Matthews, “so there must have been someone with her when she died, or just after.”
“Unless, her state of mind caused her to write that last line differently. You don’t know what must have been going through her head,” said Garraway.
“But the writing is so different,” said Matthews, “look at the first few lines, her writing is small and spidery and the last line is large and, well, loopy.”
Garraway stood up and looked around her flat holding her note. He walked into her kitchen and rustled through her drawers. He closed them and continued to look around. He walked over to the far wall where Polly had hung her calendar. He and looked at the note made against Thursday tenth of September. He squinted his eyes to read the small spidery writing.
Markland Garraway, Weatherspoon’s 9pm
He looked at the first four lines on the suicide note and compared it to the writing on the calendar. It was identical.
Matthews walked into the kitchen and watched Garraway as he looked from the suicide note to the calendar and back to the note.
“I will get the forensic handwriting guys to check it out, but I think there’s no doubt someone else had got their hands on the note,” said Matthews.
“It just doesn’t make sense. Why would someone turn up, presumably after Polly had killed herself and leave a note for me?.........It’s almost as if whoever wrote this wanted it to be found, as a way of getting a message to me.” Matthews agreed.
Garraway looked at his watch. It was half past five.
“Sorry to be a pain Colin, but would you mind running me home?”
Matthews looked up. Garraway never referred to him by his first name, unless he needed a favour.
“It’s been a long day and although it’s been a day off, I feel totally knackered and not in the best frame of mind.”
Matthews nodded and smiled, “No problem sir.”
Matthews drove Garraway home and no one spoke during the journey. Matthews stopped the car outside Garraway’s drive. Garraway got out and thanked Matthews for the lift.
“Do you think Polly Ellis could have been involved with the murder?” asked Matthews as Garraway was about to shut
the car door.
“I think that’s highly unlikely. I’ll see you tomorrow bright and breezy,” said Garraway as he went to close the car door.
“And I’ll get this note over to handwriting now so hopefully we’ll have some news in the morning,” replied Matthews.
Garraway smiled and shut the car door.
He opened the front door and threw his keys on the table in the hall. He called out to Joan, but there was no reply. He walked into the kitchen and saw a note on the dining table. He picked it up. She had left a note to say she was at her sister’s and would be back around ten. Garraway opened the fridge and saw a lone microwave curry on the middle shelf. He pulled it out of the fridge, looked the curry over, tutted, threw it in the microwave and punched four minutes thirty seconds into the timer.
He had intended to wait up for Joan, but after half finishing the curry he decided to have a very early night. He took off his jacket and tie, slung them over the back of the kitchen chair and went up to bed. It was only six thirty, but he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
He suddenly woke up at three fifteen in the morning. He sat upright and saw Joan in the half-light sleeping soundly beside him. He felt wide awake and was thinking about the suicide note. A thought crossed his mind which he immediately dismissed. Shaking his head he bedded back down, stared at the ceiling and thought about the strange day. Polly’s death, the voices on the hill and the note. He was sure there was a link. Tiredness returned and he fell back into a deep sleep until his alarm woke him just over three hours later.
Chapter twenty three
The Incident Room
9am
Saturday 11th October
Matthews was already in the incident room when Garraway arrived. Garraway helped himself to fresh coffee and sat next to Matthews.
“Are you feeling better today?” asked Matthews.
“Yes, I am. Thank you for asking.”
“I’ve spoken to Handwriting this morning and they’ve confirmed what we had suspected. There are two different sets of writing on the suicide note,” said Matthews.
Garraway nodded as he leant back in his chair with the back of his head resting in his hands.
“I would like to speak to my friend Sergeant Brock,” he said as he gazed towards the ceiling.
“What’s Brock got to do with the price of bread?” asked Matthews.
“I don’t know, maybe something, maybe nothing,” he answered in an intriguing tone of voice. He had a look in his eye which Matthews knew meant he was having one of his ‘out there’ ideas.
“I’ll start getting handwriting samples from those who knew Polly,” said Matthews,
“Yes, good idea Matthews, you do that,” answered Garraway in a nonchalant manner.
As Matthews left the room Garraway picked up the phone and dialled Brock’s number.
“Sergeant Brock, how the devil are you?” said Garraway. “I wonder if you could do me a favour?”
Later that afternoon Matthews returned to the incident room and was looking pleased with himself. Garraway was also there and was looking even more pleased.
“I’ve got the uniforms doing the rounds taking handwriting samples from those who knew Polly sir,” said Matthews.
“Good work,” replied Garraway. “Be a good lad and run this over to your friends in Handwriting”.
He handed Matthews a shopping list in a sealed police evidence bag. He had put masking tape over the ‘victim’, ‘suspect’ and ‘case number’ section of the bag so Matthews couldn’t see to whose case the evidence related.
“What is it?” asked Matthews.
“I’ll tell you after Handwriting confirm whether it’s written by the same person who wrote on Polly’s note.”
Matthews looked at the list again. The writing did look similar, with its big loopy flowing style.
“Run along,” said Garraway.
Matthews hated it when Garraway had that smug patronising attitude about him, but whenever he did, he was usually proved right.
Chapter twenty four
Darlington
2.15pm
Saturday 11th October
Carla Price was unpacking the last of her belongings and was arranging her bedroom. Her new bed had arrived the day before and her temporary bed was up in the loft along with fifty boxes of bits and pieces that she and her dad were going to sort through over the coming weeks. Since she’d moved away from Bristol she’d almost become her old self. Her father was happy to see her back to normal. Whatever it was that had upset his daughter seemed to have passed. Although, she could still be abrupt and snappy, which he put down to teenage hormones and thought nothing else of it.
Carla and her father had new starts after the weekend. It was to be Carla’s first day at Hurworth School and Richard would be starting his new job as an Analytical Chemist for CKT, a Waste Management organisation. This would be the first time in two years that he would be employed, since things had gone wrong when his wife had left him.
They were both looking forward to the new directions in their lives. Especially Carla, who saw Hurworth as a blank canvas to re-start her life, where no one would know anything about her past.
News of Ben Walker’s murder had made the middle pages of some the national newspapers and was mentioned on Sky News, but in general the incident had gone unnoticed in Darlington, which is why she felt a weight had been lifted and she could hold her head up and begin to smile again.
She smiled to herself as she placed her CDs in their rack, neatly filed in alphabetical order. She had put her Linkin Park and Flo Rida posters on the wall. Her bedroom was beginning to take shape. The photograph of her mother and father in the pink heart shaped frame was given pride of place on her bedside cabinet. She loved her father and appreciated everything he had done as a single parent, but she missed her mother and wished her parents were still together.
She kissed the photograph and lay on her bed holding it close to her chest.
Chapter twenty five
The Incident Room
3.45pm
Saturday 11th October
Matthews returned to the incident room to find Garraway beavering over a pile of paperwork. Matthews strode over to him and abruptly stopped.
“How do you do it sir?”
“How do I do what, Sergeant Matthews?”
“This,” he said as he threw down the two evidence bags, one with Polly’s note and the other with the shopping list.
“I assume that the forensic handwriting analysis bods are telling us that the handwriting samples match?” asked Garraway smugly.
“They’re 97 percent certain that the last line on Polly’s letter was written by the same person who wrote the shopping list”.
Matthews stood over and watched Garraway as he held both evidence bags and looked from one to the other. He saw a look of incredulity in his eyes. Matthews waited silently for Garraway to speak. He knew that silence would eventually urge Garraway to say something……….. but couldn’t wait any longer.
“Would you mind sharing what you know sir?” he asked impatiently.
Garraway sighed. He wasn’t quite sure how to explain what he had proved. He drew in a breath and decided to tell Matthews the facts.
“Sergeant Matthews, the handwriting on the shopping list and the handwriting at the bottom of Polly’s suicide note were both in Sarah Greenfield’s handwriting.” He waited for Matthews to contemplate what he had just been told.
“Do you mean the same Sarah Greenfield who was killed in the hit and run over two years ago?” asked Matthews.
“The very same.”
Matthews face contorted as he tried to work out the scenario. As he deliberated on how this could have happened he grimaced comically.
Matthews cleared his throat and suggested that perhaps Polly had found some paper on which Sarah had already written those words before she died and Polly used it to write her suicide note. Garraway shook his head.
“How
would Sarah Greenfield known over two years ago that I would be investigating Ben Walker’s murder, which happened last month?”
“Well it makes more sense than what you’re suggesting,” replied Matthews in an agitated voice.
“What am I suggesting?“ Garraway calmly replied.
“It sounds like you are telling me Sarah Greenfield was in Polly’s flat when Polly killed herself and then added her own words to the suicide note,” Matthews snapped back sounding tense.
“No, Sergeant Matthews I don’t think dead people can do that.”
“Well, what do you mean?” asked Matthews impatiently.
“I’m not entirely sure, I need to mull this one over and I will let you know,” he replied with a telling smile. And then he added.
“I may have indicated that it was Sarah Greenfield’s handwriting, but I haven’t suggested it was Sarah who wrote it.”
Matthew raised his hands in the air, turned round, said he was giving up and left the room.
Garraway smiled.
Garraway knew he could be patronising. He didn’t do it on purpose, it just happened, and he knew how much it annoyed Matthews. He knew that Matthews was aware that the hill had been having an effect on him, but he had never told him to what extent. Neither had he told him about Polly’s visions of Sarah. It was time he came clean.
Garraway followed Matthews and found him in the corridor at the water cooler. Matthews looked annoyed, he couldn’t hide it.
“If you expect us to work together you’ve got to stop playing stupid games,” said Matthews holding a cup of water.
“I’m sorry,” replied Garraway in an empathetic tone.
“There are some things I’ve not told you,” he continued.
“About the case?” asked Matthews.
“Not exactly,” said Garraway, “but I suppose there is a connection, but it’s more about me”.