Martin Edwards - The Coffin Trail

Who had killed Gabrielle Anders and laid her body out upon it? He needed to know everything. It was no longer enough to merely establish that Barrie was innocent of the crime. An act of wickedness had destroyed the young woman whose only crime was to visit the Lakes and look up an old friend. She’d survived the sleazy joints of downtown Vegas, only to be brutalised and killed in an area that even aesthetically challenged bureaucrats recognised as possessing outstanding natural beauty.

Would Hannah find the culprit? He ought to leave the investigation to her, it was absurd to suppose that he had inherited some genetic instinct for detection. Yet he wanted to do more than rely on such crumbs of information as she deigned to pass to him. He felt pangs of hunger for knowledge that a police officer, trammelled by rules and procedures, could never satisfy. At college, he’d craved information about the past like a junkie yearns for one more high. This urge wasn’t such a different sensation, except that this time he sought to understand who had destroyed a fellow human being. And why.

Rounding a bend, he realised that he was within half a mile of the village. The stone houses of Brack came into sight at the same instant as a siren punctured his reverie. It was a wail that haunted him. He could never hear the sound without being propelled back to the Cornmarket and the sickening presentiment that his lover was dead, that he hadn’t reached her in time to talk her out of destroying herself. The siren howled again and his stomach knotted.

Within moments he could see them thundering along the road. An ambulance, followed by a police car. Even as he watched, they skidded to the right and raced up the lane towards Brack Hall Farm.

Hannah took two quick strides so as to stand between the Dumelows and the sheep dipper. When she breathed in, the fumes hit her like a smack on the face. Her head was still throbbing, but she dared not succumb to the horror. Fighting to keep a tremor out of her voice, she said to the couple, ‘This is a crime scene now. DS Lowther will stay here while I accompany you back to the Hall.’

Simon was stroking his wife’s fine hair as she wept, murmuring inaudible words of comfort. His eyes betrayed no expression. Hannah thought he was hypnotised by the sight of the body. Perhaps he was asking himself what death felt like.

A gull swooped over them, mewing keee-ya. Nick straightened his back. His face was white. Pulling out his radio, he said, ‘I’ll call the control room.’

Hannah led the Dumelows along the track leading to the farmhouse. The couple walked slowly; both husband and wife seemed unsteady on their feet. Hannah didn’t try to hurry them; her legs too felt heavy, her shoulders tense and weighted with dismay. A hundred yards from the dipper, the path forked and they came to a halt. Tash took out a handkerchief and blew her nose noisily. Her cheeks were blotchy and there were furrows around her mouth and eyes that Hannah had never seen before.

‘She didn’t fall in by accident, did she, Detective Chief Inspector?’

‘Of course she didn’t,’ her husband said. ‘You saw the tank, how it was covered up. Jean didn’t do that. Couldn’t have done.’

‘She always was afraid of him,’ Tash said. ‘There are things she told me, in confidence…darling, I never even mentioned them to you, for fear you’d throw him out. That was the crazy aspect of it, you see. Despite everything, she still cared for him. And now he’s done — that.’

She pointed towards the sheep handling facility. Nick was standing by the stone wall, talking into his radio while he kept guard over the murder scene. And it was a murder scene, for sure; Hannah didn’t need an inquest verdict to tell her that.

‘The bastard,’ Simon said croakily. ‘I should have fired him years ago.’

‘What would have happened to Jean if you had? That’s what always bothered me, that’s why I didn’t want to rock the boat.’ A thought struck Tash. ‘Maybe she would be alive today if I had. Oh shit, shit, shit.’

‘Don’t be silly. You’ve always done your best to help her.’

‘Much good I’ve done her!’

‘Mrs Dumelow,’ Hannah said gently. ‘It won’t help to beat yourself up over this. Whoever has done this wouldn’t…’

‘There isn’t much doubt who’s done it, is there?’ Tash interrupted in a high-pitched voice. ‘That scumbag Allardyce…’

‘We don’t have proof…’

‘For God’s sake, how much proof do you need?’ Tash was almost shrieking. ‘There are so many things I could tell you. I begged her to leave him, make a new life for herself, but it was no good. He’d cowed her into submission, it was as if she didn’t have a mind of her own. That’s the way he operates. He’s vicious, a control freak. If she dared to stand up to him, he used to rape her.’

Hannah stared. ‘She told you that?’

‘Yes, and it wasn’t only when she defied him. He insisted on sex every night. Regardless of anything.’ Tash was speaking rapidly, as if a dam of reticence had burst. ‘Kinky sex was what he liked best. He used to tie her up, pretend to strangle her with her own tights. Occasionally there were threesomes, with his slimy pal Joe Dowling. Her own cousin. If she showed any reluctance…oh God, he’s a wicked man, a pervert, and I turned a blind eye to it, even though it was all going on next door.’

Simon said hoarsely, ‘You should have told me, darling.’

‘She swore me to secrecy, said he’d kill her if he found out that she’d talked to anyone else. How could I betray her?’

Hannah said, ‘We’ll need to take a full statement from you, Mrs Dumelow.’

‘What if he denies it?’ Tash’s pupils dilated with horror. ‘He’s a hardened liar and Jean is dead. Joe won’t admit his part in it, he’ll be too scared. I can’t prove any of this. Nothing.’

‘Leave us to worry about that.’

‘You know Tom’s past. He’s got away with things before. But I’m not sure you know the whole of it.’

‘And you do?’

In a whisper she said, ‘I think he may have killed Gabrielle Anders. God forgive me, I thought Barrie was guilty. But now I’m not so sure.’

‘What?’ Hannah stared at her. ‘What’s your evidence for saying that?’

‘Jean told me she gave him a false alibi. She never believed that he’d murdered Gabrielle, but that’s because she didn’t want to.’

‘That doesn’t prove he murdered Gabrielle.’

‘Come on.’ Tash was weary as well as scornful. ‘If Barrie didn’t kill her, who did?’

‘That’s pure speculation.’

‘She told me she phoned the police about it, although she didn’t dare give her name. You know about that, you must do.’

‘Yes,’ Hannah said. ‘It took us a while, but we suspected Jean Allardyce made the call.’

‘I thought that was why you’d come back here. To check up on him.’

‘Well…’

‘Listen.’ Tash’s voice faltered as she gestured to the farmhouse. ‘That man killed her and it’s my responsibility. Jean was my friend. I’m the one who let her down. I have to make amends.’

‘Darling…’ Simon said.

As he started speaking, Tash broke away from them and started running towards the farmhouse. Hannah hesitated. If she gave chase, what was she going to do when she caught up with her quarry — rugby-tackle her to the ground? Hardly the way to treat a key prosecution witness. But she had to do something. Suppose Allardyce tried to hurt Tash, maybe attempted to kill her?

‘Mrs Dumelow, come back!’

Tash kept running and so Hannah started after her. But the other woman was lithe and fit and she’d opened up a gap. Soon she reached the yard and Hannah saw her carry on until she was standing a few paces away from Allardyce’s front door.