Jack Rutherford and Amanda Lacey Box Set

by Linda Coles

  “There are no signs of callus formation or remodelling, so this injury was peri-mortem, around the time of his death. It hasn’t started to heal at all. Fractured skull by blunt force trauma, by some sort of instrument at the temple, is what killed Mr Walker,” she said to Quentin. “It’s a linear fracture and, looking at the angle and damage around it, I’d say it was sustained from behind.” Quentin snapped away as Faye looked closer. “It’s not a typical depressed fracture. It’s not from a baseball bat or something similar. The marks are all wrong. And it’s not sharp force trauma, either, like you’d see in a machete injury. But I would say it was consistent with something in between, like the edge of a spade, possibly.”

  Satisfied that the skull could tell them no more, she carried on down through the vertebrae, the ribs, the pelvis and the rest of the bones of Des Walker's body, examining each one for tiny nicks or prior breakages or anything else that could say what had happened to him. Apart from a broken ankle that had healed some years before, the only mark on Des Walker's skeleton was the fracture at the temple—the cause of his death.

  When she was satisfied that the remains could tell her no more, she instructed Quentin to photograph each of the items of clothing so they could be used for further identification. Everything had to be logged, even though the dental records were a perfect match.

  It was coming up to lunchtime when they finished. Knowing that Jack and Amanda were anxiously awaiting her results, she went back to her desk and made the call before finalising her report. She dialled Amanda's number first, and she answered almost immediately.

  “Hello, Faye. What have you got for me?”

  “I'm good, thank you, Amanda. How are you?” She was being sarcastic. “No time for pleasantries today, then?” Faye asked.

  “Sorry. How are you, Faye? Are you well?”

  “I am, thanks, and yes, I have some news for you. It is Des Walker. We confirmed it from his dental records, and everything else agrees with that. So that was a good guess; it made my job rather easy, for a change. And as you would expect, he didn’t die of natural causes but from blunt force trauma to the head. He had a fracture on his right temple from an object that was likely sharp on the edge. So, something like a spade.”

  “Right,” said Amanda, breathing out. She sounded a bit despondent even to her own ears. What had she been expecting? What had anyone been expecting? “That gives me something to work with. Thank you, Faye. Now I’ve just got to find out who killed Des Walker. And who put him in the ground.”

  “One last thing. We found a single gold cufflink, with an eagle on it. Not actually in the grave with him, a little higher up in the soil. Maybe whoever was digging the hole, lost it after the initial coverage? Apart from the remains of his clothes, that was it.”

  “Interesting, thanks.”

  “I'll leave that with you, then,” said Faye struggling out of her lab coat while she held the phone with one hand. “It’s time for lunch.”

  “I don't know how you can eat lunch in your job,” said Amanda.

  “I've still got to eat, you know, and the skeletal remains of a dead body are a lot easier to eat lunch after than someone that's jumped off London Bridge. They make a bit of a mess of themselves. Not the prettiest way to go.”

  “Spare me the details,” said Amanda, “but I get your point. And thanks again,” she said, before hanging up.

  Amanda sat back in her swivel chair and nibbled on the index finger of her right hand, not something she did normally.

  “So, he was murdered, hit by a spade or something like it,” she said to herself out loud. “Now who could have done that? And why?”

  “I have no idea,” said Raj, coming up behind her. Amanda turned and looked at his handsome face. “Any idea where Jack is?” she asked.

  “Haven’t seen him all morning,” said Raj. “So that man who was dug up was murdered, possibly by a shovel?” He balanced himself on the edge of her desk, legs crossed, hands clasped and resting on his thighs. She spied his well-manicured fingernails; Raj always looked after himself. His appearance was obviously important to him, though she wouldn't call him vain. Perhaps his colleagues could take a lesson from him.

  “The timeline fits. Des Walker was there digging a pond when the Simpsons were in residence, so I guess now we have to revisit and ask more questions. With Mrs Simpson dead, that only leaves Mr Simpson, and I've seen Jack's interview. There really wasn't anything there. I really do believe the man had no clue about this.”

  “So, what's next then?”

  “I'll tell you as soon as I know,” said Amanda.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Jack was almost back at the station when his phone rang. It was Amanda.

  “I'm nearly there now. Two minutes away,” he said, pre-empting her question of ‘Where are you?’ He was aware he had been incommunicado all morning. That wouldn't sit well with his boss. He hoped Japp hadn’t noticed too.

  “Right, thanks. I've got some news from Faye. It is Des Walker in the morgue. She's confirmed it with his dental records, as well as his height and age. That's a positive ID.”

  “Great. That gives us something to work with. Anyway,” said Jack, “I'm not surprised, really. You always thought something had happened to the guy. I just figured he’d gone off and left his debts and his sister behind. I guess you were right all along.”

  “Question is, though, who killed him? Apparently, he’s got a hole in the side of his head by his right eye, so he was hit with something heavy and with a sharp edge.”

  “Did Faye say what she thought he could have been hit with?” He was casting his mind back to what he just seen at the Simpsons’ old place: a few odd tools lying about, though no workmen. Obviously, Des Walker had been there originally, digging a hole, and would have had all his tools with him.

  “Well, she did mention a spade. What are you getting at, Jack?”

  “I don't know. I'm just thinking. I’ve just come back from the Simpsons’ old place. I'm thinking what tools you would use to dig a hole. What would be lying around for an opportunist?”

  “Well, he had a digger, but if you were whacked on the head by the side of a digger there probably wouldn't be much of your skull left.”

  “Exactly,” said Jack. “I wonder if a shovel or a garden fork would have done the trick, as Faye suggested?”

  “But surely Des would have seen that coming and defended himself? If you've got somebody stood in front of you with a shovel and they pick it up and swing it at your skull, unless your hands are tied behind your back, you’d lash out, probably put your hands out and stop it.” She paused. “Hang on a minute,” she said. “He was hit on his right temple, so that means two possibilities. One, that the person that hit him was left-handed.”

  Jack could see where she was going with this and interrupted her. “Or he was hit from behind, which would fit with your question of whether he would have seen it coming and stopped it. He didn't see it coming: he got whacked from behind by someone right-handed.”

  “Let's go over the timeline again,” she said. “Because if Des Walker went missing on the day that he turned up for work, that's got to be the day he was killed. Stands to reason. I doubt somebody would keep him tied up in the shed and risk him getting out or calling attention to himself. But Madeline Simpson had said that he’d gone off in his car and never came back.”

  “Do you think she could have done it?” asked Jack, incredulous.

  “You know as well as I do it takes all sorts to do all types of things, so I'm not surprised at anything anymore in this job. Question is, if it was her, why? What was her motive?”

  “Whoever it was, whether it was Madeline or Gordon, how did they then bury the body? That digger was there for ages, long after the funeral.”

  “I know. That's perplexing me too, because when we questioned her, that hole was still empty. We looked at it. So where was she, or whoever did it, storing him in the meantime?”

  “Was there anything else i
n the in the grave with him? His wallet or any other personal belongings?”

  “Faye mentioned a cufflink with an eagle engraved on it, but it wasn’t directly with the body apparently. It was in the dirt above him. She wondered if whoever was burying him, had lost it then.”

  “Odd. Well, I'm not far away now. Let's do as you say and look back at the timeline and who else could have been involved. Then maybe we can figure out where the hell the body was kept before they buried him.”

  “Maybe we need to look at Gordon's movements over those couple of days as well as Madeline’s. There’s one thing that is puzzling me,” said Amanda.

  “And what's that?” inquired Jack.

  “When Madeline had died, that digger was still sat there and that hole was still empty, and yet Des had been missing a few days by that stage. If Madeline had done something on her own, say, and stored the body in the garden shed, for example, surely somebody, Gordon perhaps, would have found it at a later date and wondered why it was there. Wouldn’t he?”

  “You would think so,” said Jack. “Unless the person who found the body was also in on it. They'd have had plenty of opportunity to use the digger and bury the body.”

  “Well, that poses another problem, then, because after the funeral, when they took that digger away, the driver himself filled the hole in, and there was no body in it then.”

  “So, we've got a body that somehow found itself in the ground. Is that about right?”

  “That's kind of how it looks on the surface, Jack. It's almost like a magic trick, don't you think?”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Amanda sat at her desk, perplexed. There had to be a simple explanation as to how the body had got in the ground. The worrying thing now was that her father-in-law could now be part of a murder investigation, which was a whole lot more serious than a random body being found in his garden. But how could that be? She knew Gordon. He really was a softy, and as far as she knew, he had absolutely no motive to kill and bury a landscaper. Madeline, on the other hand, had been foremost in her mind at the time of the original investigation—and long before she knew of her connection to Ruth.

  She needed space to think, and the office wasn't doing it for her, so she grabbed her bag and headed out to her car, figuring a drive would do her good. She drove to a small park just on the outskirts of town, pulled up at the curb and headed over to a park bench in a quiet corner in the shade of an old oak tree. As she walked over, she spotted a man playing fetch with his Alsatian.

  She sat and breathed deeply as she tried to think the problem through. The investigation was becoming a little bit too close for comfort. What was she going to tell Ruth? That her father and stepmother were prime suspects in a murder? There was no other plausible explanation so far, and she thought of Occam’s Razor: “Other things being equal, simpler explanations are generally better than more complex ones.”

  A body is found on a property where you lived, meaning you likely have some knowledge of how it got there. Surely?

  She dialled Ruth’s number and waited, but Ruth didn't pick up. Not bothering to leave a message, she hung up and left the phone on her lap, figuring she’d try again soon. Ruth would call back when she noticed the missed call on her screen. But after another five minutes of sitting there, Ruth still hadn't done so; that was unlike her, Amanda thought uneasily. Her mind wouldn't settle on the issue at hand, so she decided maybe a slow walk around the park would help her sort it out in her head. She thought of Fred and Rosemary West. They had filled their garden with bodies, because their basement was already too full. Amanda shivered involuntarily, wondering if there were any more bodies on the Simpson property. But why would there be?

  She watched as the Alsatian chased the ball again, retrieving it and carrying it back to his owner.

  Ruth had been keen on buying her father’s old property. But Amanda had wanted to look around if they were going to spend such a chunk of money on a house. It was also a bit too far out of town for both of them, really; it wasn’t practical. She had always wondered about that, wondered about why Ruth had made such a fuss about it when she’d only lived there a handful of years herself; she’d lived with her natural mother some miles away for most of her life. Madeline Simpson hadn’t been a part of her life until relatively recently.

  She tried to call Ruth again. It went to voicemail, and again she didn't bother to leave a message. Ruth must just be busy, she told herself. She’ll call back later.

  One thing she did have to organise now was to get Gordon Simpson back in for further questioning, and that meant she’d have to involve DI Dupin. Des Walker’s sister, Rose, needed notifying too, something else to put on the to-do list. It was another nasty part of the job, but a task she could probably do herself. At least it would give the woman closure, and she’d know why her brother had vanished so suddenly.

  Her phone rang but she instantly knew it wasn't Ruth. The opening bars of “Mr Blue Sky” told her it was Jack.

  “What's up, Jack?”

  “You stood me up for one. Where are you?”

  “Fresh air. What’s up?” she asked again.

  “I've tracked down the foreman from the Hardesty case, so I'm going to go and have a chat with him.”

  “Hang on a minute. What do you mean?”

  “The foreman from the Hardesty case. Did I not say?”

  “I guess not. We were talking about finding Des Walker.”

  “Sorry, I thought I'd mentioned it. Well, I went to see Hardesty's solicitor this morning, an old guy called Howard King who’s now retired, and he told me something rather interesting. Apparently, King was coming back from a drinking session one night and got caught short, so he pulled over to take a leak. As he was coming out from behind a bush, he heard a commotion coming from a nearby pub on a backstreet and he clearly saw Mac McAllister having a rather heated discussion with another bloke. The light was almost nonexistent; it was nearly dark, but the streetlamps were on, and so he could see McAllister but he only got a glimpse of the other guy’s face. And whatever they were talking about was getting heated, because he clearly heard McAllister shouting in a threatening voice.”

  “And so?” asked Amanda, rubbing her temples and wondering what it all had to do with anything.

  “And so King thought he recognised the bloke that McAllister was roughing up.” Jack paused for effect before going on. “Get this—it was the foreman from the trial.”

  “Right.” Amanda’s brain was clunking into motion now, but it was slow going.

  Jack carried on, “So my take on it is that somebody probably McAllister bought the foreman off for a guilty verdict. Why else would the two of them be together?”

  “So why didn't King do something at the time?”

  “My thoughts exactly, but when I asked him, he said, ‘How could I? I had no evidence.’ He wasn't one hundred percent sure it even was the foreman, but thinking back now, it all fits. Wise after the fact, like it’s easy to be.”

  Amanda continued to rub her temples, trying to think it through. Her brain felt like it was fit to burst.

  “Right. Go and talk to the foreman then. I’m sure he’ll deny it, though. Why wouldn’t he?” Then she said, “I just can't take any more in at the moment, Jack, so deal with it on your own, would you?”

  Jack detected the overcooked tone in Amanda's voice. It was unusual. She sounded scared, worried and stressed to high heaven. He changed tack. “Hey,” he said softly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Amanda felt her shoulders relax a little and was tempted to confide in him, but not over the phone. “I'll be back at the station a bit later. Perhaps we’ll have a chat then.”

  “As you wish,” said Jack, trying to keep things upbeat.

  Amanda ended the call as a white poodle dashed in front of her feet, chasing a stray tennis ball. Its blonde owner ran along behind it, waving, and apologised to Amanda for disturbing her. The woman looked vaguely familiar, Amanda thought; they’d perhaps cross
ed paths before. She raised her hand and replied that it wasn't a problem, then stood to make her way back towards her car. Her little outing hadn't done much for her thoughts apart, from perhaps depressing her a little further.

  What was about to come? she wondered uneasily. And how much anguish was about to fall on Ruth's shoulders? Nothing good for either of them, she suspected.

  The first thing she had to do was get Gordon back in for DI Dupin to interview, and take it from there.

  It wasn't a day she was going to look forward to.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  His visit with the foreman had been a waste of time. He’d expected as much, as had Amanda. As Jack entered the station through the back door, he nearly collided with DI Dupin, who was exiting. He took a quick backward step to avoid it.

  “Jack,” said Dupin. “I’ve not seen you around much. Been busy?”

  “You know me, always got my nose to the ground like a bloodhound following something.” Jack smiled and carried on his way inside, not wanting to stop for a conversation.

  “I could do with a minute later on,” Dupin called after Jack, who raised his left hand in the air in acknowledgement and carried on walking. He didn't dare look back or stop; this way, he’d won his silly game. One day, though, it would get him in trouble; of that he was sure. Still, it made him smile.

  He was almost at the squad room when he remembered the vending machine further up the corridor. He fiddled for change in his pocket, hoping he had enough for a Kit Kat. He should be giving them up, he knew, so he decided to share it with Amanda. He put money into the machine and was waiting for his chocolate bar to fall into the tray when something to the right caught his eye. Through the glass in the fire safety doors, he could see through to the front lobby and beyond, where the protesters were still hanging around, though there were now fewer than there had been. He tilted his head to get a better view and counted about ten people still with placards. The ensemble were obviously getting bored now, though Melissa ‘Bagpipes’ still looked enthused, waving her placard and shouting at anyone who passed by. Jack grabbed his Kit Kat and headed back to the office.