Cold Blood by Jane Heafield (great books to read txt) 📕

40

Bennet and Hunter stood on the veranda, staring out at Lake Stanton. At the activity taking place at the crime scene. The treetops obscured the slipway and the service road, but amongst the green Liam could make out the white of vehicles and the shimmer of police officers moving around. By the shore, divers entered and exited the water. Heavy machinery was en route to remove the CaraHome. It pained him that he was here, not there.

The bodies, according to Hunter, had been retrieved and were already at the mortuary for urgent post-mortems. The CaraHome would be out before nightfall. The scene had been cordoned off by simply blocking both ends of the service road and the entrance to Anders’ garden centre, but in such a wide open area it was impossible to prevent prying eyes. Bennet could see people in ones and twos and larger groups scattered around the far shore of Lake Stanton, and even some creeping closer on the off-limits side. Lampton locals eager to learn news, and journalists eager to sell it. Lorraine lay dead, and these bastards were loving the break in backwoods monotony. He wished he had a sniper rifle.

‘Why did they take over this hotel?’ Bennet asked.

‘Closer to the crime scene,’ Hunter replied. ‘I think one of the locals arranged it.’

Bennet had suspected as much. And he had a bad feeling he knew who. ‘That someone called Councillor Richard Turner, by any chance?’

‘I think I heard that name. Who is he?’

And there it was. Lampton locals didn’t want a police invasion of their little enclave and Turner had worked his magic, just like he had way back when Lampton hit the headlines because of a missing girl. Maybe he’d heard the news from a fox-hunting detective buddy, and had called his Freemason friend the chief constable. But he’d failed to stop word spreading, given the bastards amassed at the gate like a hungry zombie army.

‘Has anyone contacted Lorraine’s husband yet?’

Hunter was staring down at the Arrow Climb. ‘For ID? Her driver’s licence was found in her purse. We did it by photo. He confirmed.’

‘How did he take it?’

It might have been a silly question to some, but not veteran detectives. In their time, both men had seen every imaginable reaction to news of a dead loved one. Hunter had often told a tale from his detective days when he was dumped with a death knock. Informed of her husband’s death in a traffic accident, a wife had excused herself and ran to the bathroom, but it wasn’t vomiting or distressed shrieking he’d heard. And when done laughing, she’d asked Hunter out for dinner.

‘Numb,’ Hunter said. ‘Are you going to go see him?’

Bennet shrugged. He really didn’t know. At the minute it seemed wrong to. And wrong not to. ‘Am I going to be arrested?’

It was the second time Bennet had asked the question. After the first, Hunter had brought him out here, for privacy. But he hadn’t answered it.

Now, he avoided it again. ‘Clear some things up for me, Liam. Then we’ll get you out of here. The SIO on this case, a superintendent called Sutton, told me about some inconsistencies between your story and what they’ve found so far. Are you ready to tell me the truth?’

‘What inconsistencies?’

‘You said the window in the back of the motorhome broke and Lorraine’s body floated out. DCS Sutton thinks you made sure to mention that you got fully submerged, to explain your wet clothing. He thinks that although the window was big enough to get a body through, it’s doubtful Lorraine’s would have floated out. Primarily because the bodies haven’t been dead long enough to enter the bloat stage. None of them would float yet. Next, he doubts your ability to have seen other bodies. The divers indeed found three more, seat-belted in place in the cabin. The motorhome is nineteen feet long. The divers said that even with their lights, the water was so murky visibility was only about ten feet. They were halfway into the vehicle before they saw the three other bodies. Not possible from the vicinity of the back window.’

‘So what does he think happened?’

Hunter grunted in frustration. He held up the two pages of Bennet’s official first statement. ‘Liam, old friend to old friend, is this bullshit? Did you go inside that motorhome?’

‘That’s a preposterous suggestion, sir. Of course I didn’t.’

41

Superintendent Hunter arranged for him to be allowed to leave the Arrow Hotel. Bennet’s Pathfinder was in the car park, but DCS Sutton had wanted Bennet to be driven home because he was under strain and in no condition to drive – or so he’d said. But when Bennet refused an escort, the truth emerged: given Bennet’s relationship to one of the dead, Sutton didn’t trust him to stay away from the investigation. Only upon a promise to Hunter had Sutton relented.

Bennet was required to go ‘straight home and stay there’, compassionate leave beginning immediately. Eager to get out of the hotel ASAP, Bennet promised to obey this order. And he would. But he intended to be a little fuzzy on the definition of straight home.

He entered Lampton via the north end and immediately noted that the village had changed. Police officers were everywhere, and the few locals he saw on the main road looked like shell-shocked war survivors. Four dead bodies as opposed to one missing girl this time: the village might not survive its new infamy.

Doubtless there would be a village-wide canvass for information now that four bodies had been found. As he turned down a side street deeper in, he found evidence of this. From his elevated angle he saw a number of police cars and their officers knocking on doors.

He drove past. At one house, a female officer was talking to a woman on her doorstep, and the homeowner was crying. A little further on, a suspicious constable stepped into the road to block him. Bennet showed his