An Unsafe Pair of Hands Read online

  He smiled nervously, and looked down at the table.

  “You stayed out all night?”

  “Yes. Helena thought it best. In case I drank too much. Which I didn’t. I just drove back now.” Another nervous smile then, “perfectly sober,” added as an afterthought.

  “Did your wife have any plans for yesterday evening?”

  “I don’t think so. Other than a quiet night in.”

  “On her own?”

  “Yes, there was a film she wanted to watch.”

  Was it Shand’s imagination or was there something strange about George’s demeanour. A nervous excitement. A forced bonhomie. Or was that a typical stress reaction? Shand’s experience of interviewing shaken relatives was zero.

  “Did you phone your wife last night?” he asked.

  “No, she’d have been in bed by eleven. I wouldn’t want to wake her.”

  Shand paused for a second. “Have you or your wife any enemies, Mr. Benson?”

  “No, of course not.”

  The answer came too quickly. Shand tried again. “This is very important, Mr. Benson. Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt your wife?”

  “She’s hurt?” He started to rise again. Shand eased him back down.

  “She’s fine now,” he said and then paused, searching for the right words. Were there any right words? “There’s no easy way to say this but … someone buried your wife alive at the stone circle…”

  “What?” George’s eyes widened in shock. He swallowed hard. “All those cars? You mean … that was Helena?”

  “She’s shaken up but the doctor found no other injuries. They’ll be taking her to hospital for a check-up. Just precautionary. I’ll arrange for a car to take you to see her.”

  ~

  Shand stayed at the cottage after the PC and George Benson left for the hospital. Scene of Crimes would be tied up at the circle for several hours, someone had to check the house.

  And he needed to make a phone call.

  He tried her mobile first. No answer. Same as last night. She must have switched it off, though why she’d switch the thing off the weekend her new system was going live he couldn’t begin to think. It made no sense.

  But then nothing had all week.

  He tried her office.

  “Can I speak to Anne,” he asked.

  “Who shall I say’s calling?” The voice was young, female and unfamiliar.

  “Her husband.”

  “Oh, you must be Gabriel! I’ll see if I can find her.”

  Peter Shand was too shocked to reply. His biggest fear had just been given a name. Gabriel.

  A year ago he would have laughed it off. A new girl getting his name wrong. A silly mistake. But now…

  There was a muffled conversation on the other end of the line. He strained to make it out, but the phone suddenly went dead – someone must have pushed the mute button.

  Shand closed his eyes. His heart was racing, his mouth drying up. Did he really want to continue this call?

  The girl’s voice came back on the line – nervous and apologetic. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “She’s tied up in a meeting. I’ll tell her you called.”

  Click. The phone went dead. A little piece of Shand died along with it. He hadn’t spoken to Anne since he’d left London on Thursday night to take up his new job. It was now Saturday. He’d rung several times yesterday only to be told she was in a meeting, or at lunch, or ‘just stepped out.’ He’d rung their flat every hour last night until two. Had she been with this Gabriel? Who the hell was Gabriel?

  He told himself he was being stupid. There was no Gabriel. She was busy, that’s all. She had a high-pressure job and a new system to put live. That’s why she’d been distracted all month. That and the prospective move. He’d known she wasn’t as enthusiastic about moving to the country as he was, but he’d thought she’d come round. It was only for a year, after all. Just enough time to clock up the required operational experience so he could put in for promotion. They’d talked about it for years.

  But not recently.

  Maybe he should commute? Keep the London flat, and rent somewhere local. It would cost more. Leasing out their London flat would have more than paid for a house down here. They could have rented a cottage like this with a garden and…

  Maybe they still could? Even Anne couldn’t resist a place like this. He’d arrange a house-hunting trip when she came down next weekend. Line up a stack of dream cottages with honeysuckle around the door and eyebrow windows poking out from under golden thatch.

  He tried to hold onto that thought. But soon found others nudging it aside. What if she didn’t come down? What if she decided that even a year in Wessex was too much, that he was too much, that…

  Deja vu with a vengeance. The same thoughts, the same arguments had kept him awake most of the previous night.

  And to cap everything he was now in charge of a murder case. The very thing he’d been sent to Wessex to avoid. ‘I’ll find you a billet in the quietest, most crime-free corner of the country,’ his boss at the Inspectorate had told him. ‘One year as a DCI in the sticks and you’ll be back on fast track. Chief constable within ten years.’

  And now he was treading water at the deep end. No time to ease himself into the job at all – sink or swim, sink or swim.

  ~

  Time to search the place. Instinctively his hand went to his pocket in search of the spare pair of latex gloves he’d packed this morning – just to be on the safe side in case SOCO was late arriving. The pair he’d already used and left discarded at the circle. He closed his eyes. How many spare packs of gloves does a person need! Was this what life in the sticks was going to be like? Bring your own forensic kit in case SOCO was busy elsewhere dusting down tractors?

  He found a handkerchief and removed his shoes. A bit late but it eased his conscience. He’d spread enough dirt over crime scenes in the last thirty minutes to fill several buckets. Then he started to walk the rooms, slowly and methodically, looking for anything that might shed the slightest light on what had happened the previous night.

  He found nothing. No sign of a struggle, no sign of anything missing or out of place. No messages on the answerphone. No computer, so no emails. And the only correspondence he found were bills or letters from friends and family. Nothing.

  Except for two open doors and a woman buried alive in a nearby stone circle.

  And a murder.

  Which is where the case confused the hell out of him. What did he have – a murder and an abduction? Why would anyone go to all the trouble of digging a grave and setting up breathing apparatus for one victim, but simply kill the other? Was their original plan to bury both victims, but the digging took longer than expected and they gave up?

  Or was there a struggle? One of the women tried to escape and was hit too hard? The kidnappers then panicked and ran off.

  And what was the connection between the two women? Mother and daughter, sisters? Shand kicked himself. He should have asked George. What had he been thinking? He hurried back to the living room. The display cabinet against the back wall had been covered in photographs. Maybe…

  He went along the line, scanning every face, dredging back the image of the dead woman at the circle and trying to find a twin. He wasn’t sure. Some of the pictures were old – young girls playing by the sea, could one of those have grown up into the thirtysomething blonde woman at the circle?

  He stopped. He was wasting time. They might have identified the dead woman by now. He should be back at the circle.

  He dug out the list of phone numbers he’d made the day before. Members of his team. Names and numbers he could barely attach a face to yet. One of them must have arrived at the circle by now.

  He rang his sergeant first, Bob Taylor, a local man if he remembered correctly. A West Country burr answered on the third ring, “Hello.”

  “Shand here. I’m at the Benson house. Any ID on the dead woman yet?”

  “Yes, the girl who fo
und the body identified her as Annabel Marchant. Moved into the village a couple of years back.”

  “Any connection between her and the Bensons?”

  “Not that I know of. I haven’t talked to the girl myself, though Marc says she knows both families.”

  Marc? Shand was thrown for a second, then glanced down at the list in his hand. Marcus Ashenden, detective constable, the youngest member of his team.

  “Ok, I’ve finished here,” said Shand. “Can someone drive down from the circle and pick me up? And we’ll need a uniform to secure the cottage until we can get SOCO down here.”

  ~

  Bob Taylor was waiting for Shand by the entrance to the track. Most of the cars were parked along the roadside now, but Shand noticed his car was still blocked in by the circle.

  “Doctor’s just left, sir,” said Taylor. “She reckons around 12:45 last night for the time of death, give or take an hour or so. Cause of death our old favourite, the blunt instrument. More than one blow. Struck from behind, no obvious defensive wounds.”

  “Any sign of a murder weapon?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. Though SOCO says he wants to see you. If I were you, I’d give him another minute. He’s not best pleased.”

  Shand glanced over at the four figures dressed in Scene of Crimes white. “Which one’s SOCO?”

  “The surly one.”

  ~

  Shand walked over to the circle. Four white shapes stood within like druids on a midsummer morning. Shand stayed back, looking between the stones, surveying the carnage now the early morning gloom had lifted.

  It looked a mess. The grave half dug, piles of earth and turfs strewn haphazardly around the circle. Countless boot prints and scuffs added to the scene. At least the body had been taken away – one less reminder of his destruction of the crime scene.

  But what else could he have done? The woman had been buried beneath the crime scene. He didn’t know if she had seconds or minutes to live. All he knew was that he had to get her out. Could he have done it another way? Could he have dug in from the side and dragged her out that way?

  He dismissed the idea. They’d had no tools, only bare hands. There’d been no time to plan an excavation.

  But still something nagged at the back of his mind. A feeling of failure. The moment Helena Benson had grabbed his ankle, he’d lost control. And in that instant, all his training deserted him.

  One of the white figures approached. A moon of a face surrounded by sterile plastic. “Are you Shand?” he asked in a broad Scottish accent.

  “Yes, I’m sorry about the crime scene.”

  “I suppose you didn’t stop to take a photograph first?”

  Shand winced. He hadn’t thought of that. Should he have carried a camera with him? Could he have reached into a pocket and casually taken a few snaps while the woman’s hand clung to his ankle?

  “I didn’t have a camera,” he said.

  The Scene of Crimes Officer continued to look at him. Shand tried to read what he was thinking, feeling like a child brought before the headmaster, unsure if it was detention or the cane.

  “No reason why you should, I suppose,” said SOCO, now looking away and gesticulating at the grave. “The constable who found her says the dead woman was lying over the grave there. Is that right?”

  “Exactly,” said Shand. “Her body covered the mound with her head pointing towards the road. She’d been placed there.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because the body was lying unnaturally. She was lying on her stomach, her head turned slightly, resting on her right cheek. Her arms were down by her side, and her legs straight. Almost as though she was standing to attention.”

  “And her clothes? Were they pulled up at all?”

  “No. Her coat covered her to her knees and the hemline was straight. And both shoes were still on. It looked as though she’d been carefully arranged.”

  Something that Shand hadn’t appreciated before. The body had been carefully arranged. The killer had had time. They hadn’t been interrupted or panicking. They’d deliberately placed the body where it would be found. They wanted it to be found.

  But if so, why? Burying a body was all about concealment. You bury someone you don’t want found. You don’t put a marker on the top that no one can ignore. It didn’t make sense and yet … there was obviously a mind at work here. He could see the planning and the effort. Someone had taken the time to dig out a grave, cobble together a rudimentary breathing apparatus, and even replace all the turfs. It must have taken a good half-hour. And premeditation, they had to have brought the box and siphon with them.

  Or had they taken them from the Benson’s cottage?

  “Is there anything written on the box?” Shand asked.

  “There’s some lettering. Cans of peaches, I think. I doubt our friend has left any fingerprints, but we should be able trace the store it came from.”

  Which would probably be a hypermarket with a million customers, thought Shand. Or a local supermarket frequented by the Bensons.

  “We have found some duct tape though. Two pieces, one about sixty centimetres, the other ninety-five. Both partly buried in the grave infill. Might have been used to secure one or other of the victims. We’re sifting for more.”

  “Good,” said Shand. This was more encouraging. The more they found the more chances of finding something they could match. Tape had to be cut. And a cut could be traced back to the knife or scissors that made it.

  ~

  “Bob,” said Shand, jogging over to where his sergeant was standing holding a clipboard. “Where’s the girl who found the body?”

  Taylor peered over his shoulder, then pointed to a young dark-haired girl, late teens, standing by the fence. “Lisa Budd,” he said. “She was walking her dog when she saw the body. Recognised the woman and called the police.”

  “What time did she say she found the body?”

  Taylor reached into his pocket and produced a notebook. “Let me see. Just after seven. The 999 call was logged at 7:09.”

  “Did she see anyone hanging around the circle? Any traffic on the road.”

  “No one hanging around the circle. I didn’t ask about cars.”

  “Okay, thanks. Are you arranging the house-to-house?”

  “About to start in ten minutes. We’re getting another dozen uniforms over from HQ.”

  “Great, start from the victims’ homes and work out from there. Has anyone informed Mrs. Marchant’s next of kin?”

  “Not yet. We were waiting for you.”

  Another job he wasn’t looking forward to.

  “There’s a husband – Gabriel – and a teenage daughter-”

  “Gabriel?” said Shand.

  “Yes, Gabriel Marchant. Do you … know him?”

  Shand shook his head, feeling stupid, wondering why after forty years of never meeting a single Gabriel he was suddenly beset by them. It wasn’t that common a name surely?

  “Sir?”

  “What? Sorry, you were saying, sergeant…”

  “Daughter’s away at University somewhere, but the husband should be home.”

  Shand scanned the small crowd that had gathered around the entrance to the track. Why wasn’t the husband at the line of tape shouting to be let through? News would travel fast in a small place like this. If Anne had been missing since midnight he’d…

  Shand squashed that line of thought. She’d been as good as missing since Thursday.

  “Has anyone checked to see if he reported her missing at all?”

  “I’ll do that now, sir.”

  “Oh and, Bob,” he said, throwing his sergeant his keys. “Get someone to unblock my car.”

  ~

  Shand walked over to the girl by the fence. She looked bored. And cold, her arms were wrapped tightly around herself. She yawned as Shand approached.

  “Lisa Budd? I’m Detective Chief Inspector Shand. I expect you want to get off home.”

  “Yeah.
Can I go now?”

  “A few questions first. Won’t take long.”

  The girl grimaced.

  “Did you see anyone when you were on your walk this morning?”

  The girl shook her head. “No. I already told the other one. I didn’t see anything.”

  “What about traffic. Any cars on the road?”

  “No!”

  “What about yesterday evening?”

  “What about yesterday evening?” Her voice rose defensively. She glared at Shand and shuffled her weight onto her other foot.

  “I wondered if you might have seen anything unusual last night. When you came home.”

  “I stayed in last night. Didn’t see a thing.”

  Shand stared at her, wondering why she was so antagonistic. Was it him? His job? The questions? He’d never understood teenagers. He had no kids of his own and had never been a teenager himself. He’d been so busy focussing on his grades, exams and career path that he’d skipped from child to adult in a matter of months.

  He tried a lighter approach. “When I was your age, I didn’t stay in on Friday nights.”

  Lisa shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of late nights recently. I needed a night in.”

  “Do you know the Marchants well?”

  The girl snorted. “They’re incomers. I’m an ignorant local.”

  And never the twain shall meet, thought Shand. “What about the Bensons? Are they incomers too?”

  The girl’s face warmed. “No, they’ve lived here for years. Mrs. Benson was born in the village.”

  “Were they friends of the Marchants?”

  The girl shrugged. “Doubt it. Most of the Marchant’s friends come from London. You see ’em at the weekends, parading through the village in their designer clothes, laughing at us yokels.”

  She ended the sentence with a sneer.

  “You don’t like the Marchants?”

  She shrugged. “It’s them that don’t like us.”

  “What about the Bensons, do people like them?”

  Back came the smile. “Everyone likes George. And Helena too.”

  “No arguments? Village disputes? Quarrels with neighbours?”

  The girl shook her head. “Nothing at all.”

  Shand let her leave. He’d hoped to find a connection between the two women. Was it possible that the murder and the abduction weren’t linked?