An Unsafe Pair of Hands

by Chris Dolley

  She laughed nervously.

  “Does anyone else have access to this bathroom?” asked Shand.

  “How do you mean? I live alone.”

  “Quite,” said Shand. “But do you ever have any guests stay over, or do any of your friends use this bathroom?”

  “It’s the only bathroom in the house. Anyone who comes to see me uses it.”

  “Which would include Gabe Marsh, I suppose.”

  “Yes, and half the village. Look, chief inspector, are you saying that someone stole my old bottle of Valium?”

  “We’re looking into the possibility,” said Shand. “Do you remember how full the bottle was?”

  Jacintha shrugged. “Half full? Maybe three quarters. I only take the tablets now and then so… My memory’s not that good, I’m afraid.”

  “Do you know Mrs. Molland at all. She lives in the village, has a teenage son called Lee?”

  Jacintha shrugged again. “I may do. I host some of the WI gatherings here. You know, the Women’s Institute? I help out with the knitting circle, and one year we had a go at pottery. But I’m terrible at names.”

  “Did any of them have a son come to fetch them? In the last month perhaps? A teenage boy who might have used your bathroom?”

  “Possibly,” said Jacintha. “Sometimes the place is like a madhouse. People going up and down the stairs, in and out the kitchen making tea. If the weather’s nice, we like to have our sessions outside, in the back garden. Anyone could have come and gone without my noticing them.”

  Convenient, thought Shand, no one locks their doors, and no one can be ruled in or out. He thought fondly of London and the double locks, and the thousands of CCTV cameras. What he wouldn’t give for a CCTV camera set up on the Green.

  “Would you like some tea?” asked Jacintha. “Unless you’re finished?”

  There was a tinge of hope attached to Jacintha’s last question. Which Shand immediately dashed.

  “We’d love a cup,” he said.

  Shand followed Jacintha into her kitchen, pausing in the doorway to signal to Taylor that it would be an opportune moment to take a quick unaccompanied look around the house.

  Jacintha didn’t notice. She was busy filling a kettle. An Aga range in the corner pumped a steady stream of heat into the room. Jacintha flipped back the range lid and placed the full kettle on the hotplate.

  “Have you ever been married, Ms. Maybury?” Shand asked, trying to make the question sound conversational.

  “No,” she said. “Never found the right person.”

  Shand considered her choice of word. Person, not man.

  His next question stuck in his throat. What was he going to say? Are you a lesbian, Ms. Maybury? Were you Annabel’s lover? Did she spurn your advances? Did she dump you in favour of Gabe? It all sounded so sordid.

  And what would it achieve? If it was her motive for murder, she’d lie. And if it wasn’t, then what? Embarrassed silence and a hostile witness.

  And possibly poison in the tea.

  He smiled nervously and changed the subject.

  “Nice flowers,” he said, nodding at a vase in the window over the sink.

  “Yes, they’re from the garden.”

  Shand plotted a circuitous, and hopefully well-concealed, route to his next set of questions.

  “You do the gardening yourself?” he asked.

  “Yes, I love gardening. It’s so rewarding.”

  “You wouldn’t employ a gardener then?”

  “Never, my garden is my own little fiefdom. I couldn’t bear to share it with anyone else.”

  He walked to the window and looked out over the back garden; a large lawn dotted with small specimen trees, their leaves turning various autumn colours from yellow to scarlet, the whole surrounded by an irregular border of perennials and shrubs.

  “Annabel was a keen gardener too, wasn’t she?” he asked.

  “Yes, she loved her garden almost as much as her house.”

  “Did she employ a gardener?”

  “Several,” said Jacintha, smiling. “She was always firing them. They had trouble working to her exacting standards.”

  “Local lads, were they?”

  “Some were. She was using a landscaping firm in Sturton the last time I heard.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know the names of the local lads she used?”

  “Davy someone – the boy in the papers. I remember him. There was some trouble with…” She stopped and eyed him suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Sorry,” said Shand, smiling easily. “I’m a policeman. We can’t help it. We like to know everything. You were saying about the trouble…”

  She hesitated. “Something to do with Pippa,” she said coldly. “Annabel didn’t go into details.”

  Shand smiled and took another turn by the window while he worked out how to continue. He should have brought a picture of Lee Molland. He could have shown it to her. Has this boy ever been in your house? Did he work for Annabel?

  He decided on the direct approach.

  “I have a problem, Ms. Maybury. And I think you can help. A brown cardboard box about twenty inches square,” he used his hands to indicate the size, “was used in the abduction of Helena Benson. That box came from a supermarket in Harrow. A supermarket that the Marchant’s frequented. Now, you knew Annabel better than most, and you know their house well. Can you remember seeing such a box?”

  She shrugged. “Have you asked Gabriel?”

  “I have, but I got the impression he doesn’t notice that much about the house.”

  “No,” she smiled, “He doesn’t.”

  Shand tried prompting. “Perhaps she kept Christmas decorations in it, or old toys, or something she hadn’t unpacked from her move? Just an ordinary box that she kept in a cupboard, or the garage, or a garden shed.”

  Jacintha started to shake her head, then stopped.

  “There was a box. Full of bric-a-brac and ornaments she brought from her old house, but could no longer find a home for. I helped her carry it from the car.”

  “The car?”

  “When we took our jumble to the village fete.”

  “When was this?”

  The kettle whistled. She turned to make the tea. “Some time in early August.”

  “What happened to the box? Did it stay with the jumble or did you take it back?”

  “I’m pretty sure it got thrown out. We all met up the next day…”

  “We?”

  “The jumble committee and volunteers. We went through all the boxes and piles of clothes, and sorted them into lots and worked out prices. Everything else was discarded. All the boxes and wrapping paper.”

  “Do you remember the names of the committee members and volunteers?”

  “I’m terrible with names, chief inspector. The Brigadess would know. She organised everything.”

  ~

  Shand left after the tea.

  “Did you find anything?” he asked Taylor as they approached the car.

  “Not really. I couldn’t find any letters from Annabel or Gabe. I looked through her bookshelves. A lot of books on arts and crafts and poetry, nothing on poisons or witchcraft.”

  “You thought she might be a witch?”

  “I was looking for a reason for her using the stone circle.”

  Shand’s door clicked open and he climbed inside.

  “Don’t you find her too disorganised to be the murderer?” Shand asked.

  “No. I think she fits the bill perfectly. You said the murders were theatrical, and she’s theatrical. From the way she dresses, to the way she decorates her home.”

  Shand disagreed. Jacintha was artistic. The murderer was an exhibitionist. And a planner.

  “Hold on a second,” he asked Taylor. “I need to phone the Brigadess first.”

  The Brigadess answered just as Shand was about to give up. Her tone changed the moment he gave his name.

  “Tired of harassing Helena are you?” she snapped.


  Shand apologised and tried to explain, his words sounding empty and rehearsed. As indeed they were. I was only doing my job, those questions had to be asked.

  The Brigadess appeared to relent. “It can’t be a pleasant occupation.”

  “No,” said Shand, swiftly moving the conversation along. “The reason for my call concerns the village jumble sale. I was told you organised the sorting of the jumble.”

  “Yes, chief inspector, I did.”

  “Could you tell me who helped with the sorting?”

  “I assume you have a good reason for asking?”

  “The cardboard box that Annabel’s jumble came in, could have been used in Helena’s abduction.”

  The Brigadess was silent for a while.

  “Mrs. Montacute?” he asked.

  “I’m thinking,” she said. “I believe the boxes were put aside with the other rubbish to be thrown out. But…”

  “But what?”

  “I can’t recall what happened to them. Some of the stronger boxes would have been reused. There’s usually someone looking for a decent box. Stall holders, exhibitors, helpers.”

  “Who was present during the sorting?”

  “Myself, of course, Annabel, Jacintha, Lisa Budd, Helena, Tracey Molland…”

  “Tracey Molland? Is that Lee’s mother?”

  “Yes, she likes to see what items are coming in before they go on sale. I suspect she has an arrangement with some of the stallholders to hold things back. But she needs the money so I look the other way.”

  ~

  Standing on the step outside the Molland house, Shand could feel the adrenaline flowing. He could be one knock away from closing the case.

  Tracey Molland answered the door, holding it open a crack. A television studio audience screamed in the background.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “Is Lee at home?”

  “No.”

  She started to close the door. Shand pushed his foot into the gap.

  “Can I see his room?”

  “You won’t find him there?”

  “I can come back with a search warrant and a dozen heavy-footed coppers, If you want?”

  She let go of the door and turned away. “Make yourself at home,” she said over her retreating shoulder. “See if I care.”

  The two policemen entered. “Check the back,” shouted Shand as he rushed upstairs.

  There were four doors at the top of the landing. He tried them all. Two bedrooms, a bathroom and an airing cupboard. No sign of Lee. He peered out the back window, over the small back garden, the rickety wooden fence and the hillside beyond.

  Nothing.

  “He’s not down here,” shouted Taylor from below, fighting with the television to be heard. Jerry Springer or one of his clones judging from the shouts and invective.

  Shand went back to Lee’s bedroom. There were shoes on the floor. Trainers. Not Astrella. But every one was size eight.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Shand charged into the lounge. Tracey Molland was sitting on the edge of a dilapidated sofa watching TV.

  “Where is he?” he asked. “Where’s Lee?”

  “Out,” she said, her eyes never leaving the screen where two under-dressed, overweight women, urged on by a wild studio audience, screamed abuse at each other.

  “When will he be back?”

  A shrug. And more screams from the TV as the two women began to fight.

  Shand marched over and turned off the set.

  “Hey, I was watching that!”

  “Then answer my questions. The quicker I get answers, the quicker I leave.”

  She folded her arms and slumped back in the sofa, her face set like a spoilt child denied a treat.

  “Did Lee go to the garden party at the Rectory last month?”

  “Might have.”

  “Did he or did he not?”

  “Ok, so he went. We all did. So what?”

  “Did he bring anything back with him?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a bottle of wine?”

  “A bottle of wine!” She sprang upright. With the right studio audience, she’d have flown at Shand, fingers scratching. “Is that what this is all about? People being murdered all over the village, and all you care about is a bottle of bloody wine?”

  “Would you rather I asked Lee’s whereabouts at the time of the murders?”

  That quietened her. For a second. “Might have known you lot would try to pin everything on the likes of us. Never were no murders until them incomers started buying up the village. That’s where you should be looking. Not here.”

  Taylor came in. “He’s not out back.”

  Shand looked at Mrs. Molland. She glared back, arms folded once more, eyes glistening with hostility. He wasn’t going to get any more out of her. And there were other things he could be doing – like searching the house before she thought to withdraw permission.

  “Your turn,” he told Taylor and left.

  He tried the bathroom first, a small damp room that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the fifties – the enamel on the bath had worn away under the taps leaving two dirty brown stains. And black mould crept down from the ceiling, dotting the white tiles in the cleft between the two outside walls.

  He pulled open the mirrored door of the cabinet over the sink, lifting and tilting every bottle. No Valium.

  He moved onto the airing cupboard. An uninsulated hot water tank and three shelves of warm clothing. He lifted each in turn, then dropped to his knees and felt behind the tank with his hands. Nothing, except for dust and cobwebs.

  Snippets of conversation percolated up from downstairs. Taylor was chatting to her now, putting her at ease, doing all the things that Shand should have done. All the things he’d forgotten in his head-down charge for answers.

  Back to Lee’s bedroom. Clothes and magazines strewn on the floor. Shand picked through them – and the battered wardrobe, and the chest of drawers – nothing. No Valium, no incriminating papers, no spare bottles of Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

  He skimmed the solitary bookshelf. Text books mainly. Mostly on Mythology – Greek, Norse and Celtic. A student’s union card rested on the last book. Lee was enrolled at Sturton College.

  Was that where Lee was now?

  He put the union card down and flicked through a pile of CDs – could one be a computer disc? Did Lee Molland own a computer?

  A quick glance around the bedroom. No computer. No sign of a hi-fi either. There was a cheap clock radio on the floor by the bed and a personal CD player on the chest of drawers. The Molland’s didn’t look like a family that had money to spend on expensive items.

  He returned to the lounge, trying to slip in quietly.

  “Had a good look?” said Mrs. Molland, her mood changing the instant she saw Shand. “If any of my underwear’s missing, I’m ringing the papers.”

  Shand smiled weakly – he could imagine the headlines – and pointed to the front door.

  “I’ll be in the car,” he said.

  ~

  Taylor emerged fifteen minutes later.

  “Did you get anything?” Shand asked.

  “Not much. She’s been to Jacintha’s house on a couple of occasions with the WI, but is sure that Lee never has. Though from talking to her, I don’t think she has much idea what Lee does or where he goes.”

  “What about the jumble sale? Did she remember anything about the cardboard box?”

  “Nothing at all. Says she was too busy pricing up the jumble to notice what happened to the boxes.”

  “Did she say if Lee was there?”

  “He was there all afternoon helping set up the stalls.”

  It was enough for Shand, but not enough for a warrant. Not anywhere near enough.

  He looked beyond the two rows of terraced houses towards the end of the short cul-de-sac. There was a stile. Did it lead to a footpath? The footpath, the one he’d seen the night before when leaning over the Benso
n’s back wall? It was heading in the right direction – if his bearings were correct.

  “Stay here,” he said, starting to walk away backwards. “I want that house under twenty-four hour surveillance. And see how Marcus is getting on with the house-to-house. I won’t be long.”

  He turned and jogged the short distance to the end of the road, climbed the stile and set off across the field, following a line of crushed grass towards the wood on the far side.

  Was this Lee’s back way into the village? A deserted track he could use without fear of being seen? Slip over people’s back garden walls at the dead of night, then sneak away?

  Maybe this was how he gained access to Jacintha’s medicine cabinet? He broke in at night.

  The track ended in another stile. A woodland path lay on the other side. Shand followed. The path bent and twisted between the trees. He could see a wall ahead, framed between the leaves. A long high wall – probably the back wall of the Rectory garden, it was built of the same dark grey stone and had to be at least eight feet high.

  Shand followed the path along the base of the wall until he noticed a door. An old wooden door, its brown paint flaked and peeling. Was this a back way into the Rectory?

  He tried the handle. It was stiff, but turned, the door juddering as he eased it open a crack. There were bushes on the other side. He opened it farther and slipped inside. A line of rhododendrons formed a high screen that ran along most of the northern wall. Shand found a gap between the branches and peered out. Across a wide expanse of lawn, lay the Rectory.

  He stood there thinking for a while. Did the presence of the door make it easier for Lee Molland to slip out with a stolen bottle? Marginally, perhaps. But there was something else it most definitely did do – it provided Gabe Marsh with a way of leaving the Rectory yesterday evening without Bob Taylor seeing him.

  He slipped back through the door and followed the path farther along the garden wall. It was almost a tunnel – trees on one side, a high wall on the other, a canopy of branches overhead and in the distance a circle of light.

  Which turned out to be an entrance to a cow pasture. He ducked underneath the single strand of electric wire that marked the end of the path and stopped to get his bearings. He was standing in a small L-shaped field. One leg of the L stretched uphill, probably towards the Benson house and the stone circle, while the other ran straight ahead towards the road and a field gate. To his right the field continued downhill for another hundred and fifty yards, ending in the line of back gardens from the houses in Upper Street. The third house along caught his attention. Larkspur cottage, Jacintha Maybury’s home.