Rachel Sargeant - The Good Teacher - A gripping thriller from the Kindle top ten bestselling author of ‘The Perfect Neighbours’

The thought of my day so far makes my insides clench but I manage a breezy “Fine”. Trying not to sound desperate, I say how glad I am to see them again and go back through the kitchen.

The lounge curtains, closed when the police broke in, are now pushed back to let maximum daylight onto the crime scene. With the light comes the fire of a midsummer day. My hand goes to undo my jacket but the protective suit is in the way. Apart from the pungent smell of forensic chemicals sprinkled into the carpet, the room is orderly. Matching cushions on the sofa and paperbacks on the small bookcase. Red roses on the coffee table and a cheap carriage clock on the mantelpiece, but otherwise no ornaments or photos.

My own small lounge has every available space crammed with photos: old ones of Mum and Dad in the same frame; one of Dad’s wedding to Joanne and several of their son, Jamie, from newborn to the current cheeky eight-year-old. But no photos in this house, no clues to the occupants.

I kneel over the kitchen chair in the middle of the room and get a whiff of the oily scent left by the fingerprint experts. Hard to know what colour the chair is under its dosing of white powder. A pale wood, perhaps, and there are several paint spots, evidence that the chair has been a makeshift decorating ladder before its latest incarnation as a prison for Gaby Brock. Some of the spots are summer yellow and partly obscured by splodges of blue. The circus room with its yellow walls probably wasn’t the most recent project.

On the bookcase, two shelves of light romances mingle with classic horror, and another shelf of paperback textbooks. Understanding Shakespeare; Yoga Postures; Towards the National Curriculum; Modern Grammar; Advanced Yoga. Which books belonged to the husband and what will the wife do with them now?

Dave, the forensics officer, puts his head around the door. “Tell Mike Matthews I’m off. I’ll have my initial report ready this afternoon.”

“Ok, I’ll tell him. It was nice meeting you,” I say.

Dave grins. “You too, Agatha”. Then he’s gone.

My cheeks burn. Matthews must have told him about my failed Agatha Christie joke. It wasn’t that funny, was it?

PC Kieran Clarke appears at the door. “Mike Matthews wants us to make a start on the house-to-house enquiries. Find out if anyone saw Brock’s Mondeo leaving in the middle of the night.” He pauses to give his face time to break into a smirk. “So you’d better hurry up, Agatha.”

There’s more danger that her Jimmy Choo heels will pierce the forensic overshoes and sink into the melting tarmac of the Martle Top road than they will bury themselves in the dried-out grass verge, but force of habit makes DI Liz Bagley tiptoe to the edge of the ditch. She shouts across to the kneeling figure of SOCO Steve Chisholm.

“Anything?”

He stands up. “Not much. There are some tyre tracks on the grass over there.” He looks towards a patch of ground a few feet ahead. “From a bicycle, I think. The grass is flattened as if someone’s laid a bike down.”

“That fits. The man who found the body was on a bike. Where’s Dr Spicer?”

Chisholm points to the white incident tent a few metres behind him. “In there with the victim.” He folds his arms, a half-smile hovering over his mouth.

In that moment Liz hates him. Clockwise Chisholm might be the station’s resident anorak, with his hand semipermanently stuck up the back of a computer, but he’s astute enough to realize that, to get to the tent, she’ll have to cross the ditch. Its banks could harbour a few wet spots despite the heatwave. She isn’t going arse over tits for anyone.

“Get me a plank,” she says.

“I’ll call DC Holtom.”

“Not that sort of plank.”

Chisholm grins. “I meant he’s got the bridge.”

“Tell him to be quick,” she says, cursing herself for not bringing her wellies. She took them out of the car caked in mud weeks before, but forgot to put them back.

DC Holtom comes over with a duckboard. She steps across the ditch, placing one foot deliberately in front of the other. Her expression hardens against the curious gazes of Chisholm and Holtom. No way is she giving them the satisfaction of seeing her slip.

At least DS Mike Matthews isn’t here. He’d enjoy watching her walk the plank. The man is dire. So polite and correct, apart from his outsize broomstick hair. “Yes, ma’am, certainly ma’am. If you want me to, ma’am.” But behind the plodding reliability, Liz has the feeling he’s waiting for her to fall flat on her face. It’s a good thing he’ll be preoccupied from now on with supervising DC Adams. He’ll be too busy keeping that towering toddler on her feet to trip up his detective inspector.

Matthews and DCI Hendersen did the interviews for the vacancy, so it’s their fault they’ve ended up with a girl trainee. Lads are much easier to knock the corners off. They’re a bit wet behind the iPhone, but they know who’s boss. Women, on the other hand, make loose cannons.

Liz complained to John Wise about it, of course. That’s lover’s perks. But Assistant Chief Constable Wise was non-committal. There was no suggestion, on his part anyway, of wading into Hendersen’s office and pulling rank.

And the upshot is DC Pippa Adams. An overgrown cheerleader, all pink cheeks and ponytail. Detective material? Unlikely. Time will tell.

As Liz steps off the duckboard, she goes down on her ankle but rights herself despite the pain. With all the dignity she can muster, she heads into the incident tent.

“I didn’t think you’d catch up with me this quickly,” a woman’s voice says through the polished brass letterbox. The door opens a fraction and the voice continues, “Can I ring Stuart – that’s Mr Perkins, my husband – before you take me in? I’m allowed one phone call, aren’t I?”

A pair of hunted green eyes appear and I wonder what crime I’ve stumbled into. Isn’t that how we caught the Briggham killer – routine enquiries into another case? I glance up the road, but my colleagues are nowhere in sight, each having allocated themselves a different avenue on the Southside estate for the house-to-house. I knocked at the first house in a cul-de-sac that runs off the road behind the Brocks’ house.

“I suppose you’ll want to come in while I’m on the phone so I don’t abscond,” the woman says. She opens the door wide.

I step over the threshold. Should I call for backup? After a shaky start on my first day are things about to get even rockier?

“I must be in a lot of trouble if they’ve sent a CID officer,” the woman says. She leads me into the lounge. What villainy could have taken place in a room where paisley pink curtains match the sofa cushions?

“What do you think will happen to me? I know it’s not much of an excuse, but I would like to say in my defence that I only saw it was back this morning.”

“Back this morning?” I ask, trying to disguise my bewilderment. The woman is chatty. I’ll feed her enough rope, get her to confess to whatever it is she’s done and make an arrest. Maybe even redeem myself in DS Matthews’s eyes.

“It was propped against the front wall. I swear it wasn’t there yesterday. And Stuart walked up and down the avenue before we spoke to your officers on Wednesday. There was no sign of it. I know we shouldn’t have kept it in the front garden. The way other people let their children stay out till all hours. It’s asking for trouble in this day and age.”

“Is it?” I ask.

“They’ll take anything if it’s not nailed down, even a tatty old thing like that. Except they didn’t take it because it’s back now. But I swear it wasn’t there yesterday, not since Wednesday.”