Линда Ла Плант - Unholy Murder

Durham realised what he’d done. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I wasn’t thinking straight.’ He put his hand out to help Boon up.

‘You fuckin’ arsehole!’ Boon exclaimed, knocking Durham’s hand away.

Durham stood upright, his face turning blue as he struggled to breathe.

‘Oh God, please help me,’ he pleaded, clutching his chest as his face contorted with pain.

Boon was struggling to get up. He could only watch as Durham staggered backwards, fighting to breathe. As Thomas fell, Lloyd managed to catch him and lay him gently on the floor.

‘He’s having a heart attack. Keep an eye on him, Jane, and I’ll call an ambulance,’ Lloyd said.

She shook her head. ‘That’ll take too long. Get some of the uniformed officers to take him to the hospital in the police van.’

As Lloyd ran up the stairs, Durham’s breathing was getting shallower, and his eyes began to close.

Boon knelt beside him. ‘Where’s Becky?’

‘He’s unconscious. We need to try and resuscitate him,’ Jane said, pinching Durham’s nose and putting her mouth over his.

It wasn’t long before some uniformed officers arrived with a large riot shield which they used as a makeshift stretcher to take Durham to the hospital. Jane instructed one of them to remain at the hospital with Durham as he was a suspect for abduction and murder. She gave another officer Nick Durham’s home phone number and asked him to get the duty sergeant to tell him about his father’s heart attack.

Jane used Durham’s phone to call Stanley and told him what had happened.

‘Bloody hell. How bad is he?’ Stanley asked.

‘Not good. But Boon and I resuscitated him. And he was breathing with a slow pulse when the uniformed officers took him away. I’ve asked that the duty sergeant contact Nick Durham.’

‘So it looks like Becky was in Durham’s house, then,’ Stanley said.

‘It looks like he killed her in the crypt,’ Jane said. ‘Her body might be in the old tunnel, so I’m going to knock the wall down.’

‘Do it,’ Stanley said.

‘And if she isn’t, I’m going to keep searching,’ Jane replied.

‘Don’t exhaust yourself. Take a rest if you need one. Salmon wants a briefing with the team tomorrow morning at nine.’

‘Did you tell him about the search warrant?’ Jane asked.

‘Yes, he was pissed off that I didn’t ask him first. I reminded him that he buggered off to the Yard and left me in charge.’

‘Are you going to update him?’

‘No. He’s spent most of his career behind a desk in planning and development. He scurries off when you confront him with a difficult situation because he doesn’t know what to do.’

‘Let’s hope he stays that way,’ Jane remarked.

‘I’d best let you get on. I’m not going anywhere, so keep me updated.’

As Jane put the phone down, Lloyd approached her.

‘I examined the stairwell rope. There are traces of blood going up it on the underside. Someone with a bloody hand used it to support themselves as they climbed the stairs. It’s possible Durham carried Becky’s body upstairs and put it in a car to bury her elsewhere.’

‘I’m still going to knock that wall down. You any good with a sledgehammer?’

‘I always hit the high striker bell at the funfair,’ Lloyd grinned.

It didn’t take long to knock a hole in the wall and search the tunnel, but there was no sign of Becky.

‘DS Tennison... I’ve found something of interest in one of the wheelie bins,’ the dog handler shouted from the top of the stairs.

Jane and Lloyd followed him to a dimly lit wooden hut at the far end of the parking area. Inside were four large metal wheelie bins, one of which was on its side with the contents strewn across the floor. To one side, placed neatly on police exhibits bags was a bleach bottle.

‘I found that bleach bottle in the bin. It looks like it might have a blood smear on it. One of the residents told me the bins are emptied every Tuesday morning at around ten.’

‘Which means the bottle could only have been put in the bin on Tuesday after ten or today,’ Lloyd remarked as he put on protective gloves and placed the bottle in an exhibits bag.

‘The uniformed lads helped me search the other bins. There were no blood-stained items in them,’ the dog handler said.

‘He probably burned any towels or cloths he used to clean up... or dumped them with Becky’s body,’ Lloyd said.

‘How quickly can you test that bleach bottle for fingerprints?’ Jane asked Lloyd.

‘Is there any rush with Durham being in hospital?’ Lloyd asked.

‘If a doctor says he’s fit to be interviewed, I’ll do it by his bedside. I want as much evidence against him as possible.’

‘I’ll take the bottle back to the lab and get to work on it first thing in the morning. Has Thomas Durham ever been arrested?’

‘Not as far as I know — unfortunately,’ Jane replied.

‘No problem. I can use the coffee mug he drank out of earlier for comparison to any marks on the bleach bottle. I’ll also take lifts off other items likely to have his prints on them.’

‘If Becky was murdered here, Durham must have disposed of her car as well. It’s possible he put her body in the boot and used the car to transport it. If that was the case, he’d need to hide the car, which isn’t easy,’ Jane said.

‘He could have set light to it with her body inside,’ Lloyd suggested.

‘Possibly, but I’d have thought someone would have seen the fire or found it burnt out by now. It’s also a big risk to drive a car a long distance with a body in the boot. Do you know if the underwater search unit work at night?’ she asked.

‘They come out at any time if it’s an emergency. Why do you ask?’

‘There is a small lake down by the woods. He might have weighted Becky down and dumped her body in it, then hidden the car elsewhere,’ Jane said.

Jane rang Stanley while Lloyd took some fingerprint lifts from the coffee cup and other items in Thomas Durham’s house. Jane asked Stanley for permission to call out the underwater search unit. He said he would call them and come down to the scene.

As they waited for the underwater search unit, Jane and other officers went down to the lake with seek-and-search torches. One of the officers found some narrow tyre marks leading from the building-site track to the edge of the lake and down into the water. Jane was certain the marks were from Becky’s car and her body would be in it.

When the underwater search unit arrived they set up four big arc lamps powered by a petrol generator, which lit up the surrounding area, creating an eerie glow on the surface of the still water. Two divers went into the lake with submersible torches. A few minutes later, one of them surfaced and did a thumbs-up. The underwater unit had a cable winch attached to their large truck, which one of the divers attached to the submerged vehicle.

Everyone watched in silence as the red Citroën 2CV was slowly pulled out of the lake and water cascaded out of the vehicle. As Jane moved forward, an officer turned one of the arc lamps towards the boot, casting an ominous shadow of Jane’s body over the car. Jane’s hand trembled as she placed it on the boot lever. She knew she was about to find Becky’s body but dreaded the moment. As Jane lifted the boot lid, she saw a black canvas suitcase wedged inside. She asked the search officers to remove it. It took two of them to lift it out, then place it on the ground. Jane unzipped it. Becky’s body was curled up in a foetal position with a blood-stained towel tucked into one corner of the case. Fighting back the tears, Jane stepped to one side to allow Lloyd to take some photographs. She walked over to Stanley and Boon.