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

“Would you recognize the men again?” Bagley continues.

“Maybe but – I don’t know – it was dark. The torchlight in my face … I couldn’t see …”

As the woman’s voice tails off, I expect Bagley to fill the silence. When she doesn’t, my question pops out.

“How did your husband cut his hand and get the bruising? Was it during the assault?”

Bagley’s jaw tightens at my interruption but she looks at Gaby Brock, waiting for the answer.

“His hand?” Gaby’s eyes glaze over and she seems to retreat into her private thoughts. “I don’t know. I don’t think he tried to fight them off. How could he? He might have done something to his hand at school, but it hardly matters now that he’s …” Gaby shakes her head. Her right cheek is black, and a purple blotch, visible through her thin fringe, spreads from her left temple across her forehead into her hairline.

Bagley lets out a small, defeated sigh. “That’s all we’re going to ask you at the moment. I want you to look through some images later to see if we can identify your attackers but for now you can leave the station. Where can we find you?”

“She’s staying with me,” Linda says. “I’m not having her go back to that house.”

“Good. I can’t let you go home anyway, Mrs Brock. It’s a crime scene. We’ll be doing an appeal to the public, so it would help if we had a recent photo of your husband. If you tell me where to look, I’ll send an officer into your house to get one.”

“Photo,” Gaby echoes as if she’s never heard the word before. I cast my mind over the barren walls and tables of the Brocks’ lounge. Photography does seem to have been an alien concept to the couple.

Linda Parry comes to her sister-in-law’s rescue, offering to provide something from one of her own family photo albums. DI Bagley closes the interview with a cursory “thank you” and stands up.

I follow her to the door and look back at the two women. “Goodbye,” I say. “It was nice to meet … I’m sorry for … Goodbye.”

DI Bagley speeds along the corridor. “I want you to join DS Matthews in Forensics. See what they’ve got so far. Good question, by the way, well done, but no need to be overfamiliar with the witnesses. This is a murder inquiry.”

“Yes, ma’am, thank you,” I say to the back of the gingham skirt as it disappears through the door at the end of the corridor. I can’t help grinning to myself. I’ve asked my first question in CID and, despite it coming out in a gabble, the inspector was impressed. Not that the answer told us anything. The cut hand is still a mystery. Dr Spicer has already said there’s no other sign of a struggle, so Gaby’s vague suggestion of an injury at school simply confirms that it didn’t happen during the attack at the house. At least both sources are consistent, making it likely that Gaby Brock is telling the truth. I all but tap dance along the corridor. Things are looking up.

“DC Adams,” a voice booms behind me. “Hoped I’d catch up with you. Everything going well, is it?”

I spin round to see the advancing hulk of Detective Chief Inspector Hendersen, the chairman of my interview panel. So huge in his tweed jacket that I think he must have at least two more on under it. He moves at quite a speed for a man of bulk, jowls flapping. A rhino charge? Or a Saint Bernard dog?

“Very well, sir, thank you,” I manage.

The DCI catches up but doesn’t speak again. The silence unnerves me and I fill it with basic facts about the case. The longer he remains mute, the more disjointed my explanation becomes. While my mouth moves, my brain wills him to talk. His eyes are boring a hole in my middle. The dreadful realization dawns that I’ve left my jacket on the chair in the interview room. I’m standing in front of a senior officer exposed in my royal blue T-shirt.

DCI Hendersen’s gaze takes in every letter of the sparkling silver Boogie Babe motif before moving on to the Barbie girl below it. After what seems like an age, he resumes his military bellow. “Jolly good work so far, DC Adams, but remember this is a police station not a night club. CID is the plain -clothes branch. How would it be if I pitched up in my pyjamas?”

My eyes hit the ground in search of a gaping hole to swallow me up, royal blue T-shirt and all.

“Carry on, detective constable, carry on.” He strides past me, muttering to himself, “And they expect us to take them seriously.”

After retrieving my jacket, I join Matthews in Forensics. Blood pounds in my cheeks. How could I have undermined my credibility with the DCI on my first morning in the job?

Matthews is sitting with a man who has the same air of scientific inquisitiveness as Dave, the forensics officer I met at the Brocks’ house.

The man grins. “I’m Steve Chisholm. You must be Agatha. I’ve been hearing all about you.”

Same appearance and same sense of humour. Thanks again, DS Matthews.

The room is a jumble of desks, each with its own spaghetti tangle of telephone and computer cables. Two or three small, heavy-duty suitcases of forensic equipment lie on the floor. I wheel a swivel chair over and sit on the edge, trying to slide my back down to their level. I daren’t touch the handle to alter its height. Landing spread-eagled on the floor is the only indignity the day has so far spared me, but I still have the afternoon to endure.

Evidence bags litter Chisholm’s desk. Matthews has his notebook open.

“Steve’s going through the forensics for both crime scenes,” he explains. “Dave’s team has scarpered back to Briggham.”

“Did you know that it’s the fifth fatal stabbing in Brigghamshire this year, but only the second kidnap?” Steve says. “Quite a puzzle for you. Good job you can call on forensic science.” He points at two large see-through bags. One contains a heavy metal chain and the other holds a set of handcuffs. “We got these from the lads at the Southside crime scene. We’ve only found one set of fingerprints.”

“Anyone we know?” Matthews asks.

“Definitely not the wife’s. So, if she did handle the chains, she would’ve been wearing gloves.” Steve grimaces. “But there were no gloves anywhere near the lounge where she was found.”

“She says the assailants got her husband to chain her up.”

“We’ll get the prints off your corpse. If they match the prints on the cuffs and chains that would fit with her account.”

Matthews holds up a bag containing two small keys.

“We got a partial on one of those,” Steve says, taking the bag. “The prints were smudged.” He shrugs. “Not unusual on something like this.”

“I take it they do fit the cuffs?”

“One key for the cuffs, one for the padlock on the chains. It was a pretty sick joke, putting the keys to unlock them in the pocket of her pyjamas – these pyjamas.” He lifts another bag. “Mrs Brock was wearing them when we found her.”

DS Matthews takes the bag, looks at it and passes it to me. The pyjamas, folded with the top pocket visible, are like something I’d buy in Marks & Spencer. Paisley pattern, lemon and white winceyette. I have a pair like them for winter.

“And that’s about it,” Steve says, retrieving the pyjamas. “We couldn’t find anything in the bedroom. There were a couple of bits of rubbish on the lounge carpet. This piece of cotton thread and a fragment of toilet tissue.” He points at the relevant bags on the desk. “The other thing of significance might be this.” He passes round a small bag containing a single black hair. “It’s hair uprooted from a human head, probably IC3. We’re working on the DNA, so if you find your suspects we may have evidence which places one of them at the house.”