Chapter 13 - Behind the Box Hedge
Dean went to find some colleagues to help him search the back entrance and slip road. Two uniformed officers were now spare, as the fingerprinting was done. They had only just started searching when a bloodstain was found at the edge of the road surface, and Dean sent for forensics to come and take a look. The weed-infested grass verge showed evidence of a large heavy object falling onto it, and further bloodstains were soon found. The weather had been dry, so it was easy to track the path the object had taken as it was dragged along the verge. Dean was sure it was Chewter's body that had made the trail. A dark patch showed where the body had initially fallen. The road surface showed no blood, apart from the tiny mark on the edge. Obviously the body had not been dragged bleeding over the tarmac to the door of the building.
Dean asked the officers to conduct a fingertip search of the grass around the worst bloodstains. Nothing came to light, so he widened he area, trying to imagine the direction the bullet would have taken. Sure enough, a spent cartridge was found at some distance, in the undergrowth of the belt of trees that separated Southcliff Hall grounds from the field beyond. Dean carefully marked where it was found, then bagged and tagged it.
Helford joined him and they watched as the forensics team took samples from the stains. "It has to be where Chewter was shot," Dean insisted.
"Yes, I agree - I suppose he was brought here - or lured here - and he had the keys to open the door and turn off the alarm," Helford agreed. "But - several problems - how did they re-set the alarm? I can understand that they would use his keys to lock up again, that's probably why we can't find them. But why draw attention to the breeze-block wall by sticking him in front of it? Why not cart him off in whatever vehicle they came in? And why smash his face in if we could tell more or less straight away who it was?"
"Perhaps they couldn't take him away for some reason. Look, sir - there's an oil patch on the road. It looks quite recent. Maybe they had car trouble. If they were the same ones who killed the men behind the wall, they knew their way around and put him down there until they could take him away. After all, it was pure chance that someone went down there yesterday."
"Hmmmm - plausible. Go and ask the lovely Miss Stanley to give us details on who came to deliver anything legitimately in the last fortnight or so - we can check if any of their vans had an oil leak."
Dean trotted off eagerly. Helford continued to stare at the oil patch and wonder. Then the senior forensics officer came up to tell him that fibres had been found in a drag pattern along the roadway near to the building, which were different to the clothing fibres associated with the bloodstains. "Looks like a dustsheet of some kind - the new disposable sort you can buy in the DIY stores now. Not very strong, so we've got quite big lumps torn out on the rough surface of the road."
"My initial guess is that the body was wrapped in this dustsheet, then dragged along towards the door," the officer continued. "The bloodstains stop abruptly here on the grass," he pointed to an area, and Helford tried to see what he was supposed to see. "Then there's a gap - I expect the grass was kinder to the dust sheet. You can see the grass is still a bit flattened, so the weight was going along there. Then the other fibres start on the tarmac. Ripping it to pieces, I expect. They would have quickly realised they had to pick up the body."
"So what you're saying is, we need to look for some lazy sods who bought a commonplace dust sheet. Great, that narrows it down a bit. Any chance of tyre marks, or a particular kind of oil on that leak there?" Helford pointed at the oil stain Dean had noticed.
The forensics man looked pityingly at him. "Not much chance there, I'm afraid - oil is oil, if you know what I mean. Just a few commonly used brands, and as for tyre marks - this is a hard tarmac surface, not a muddy field, or the racetrack at Silverstone. No-one would leave a mark just stopping slowly here."
"Sorry, just hoping," Helford apologised.
"We'll dust for prints on the door, just in case. Don't get your hopes up, we seem to be dealing with professionals. It was well thought out, killing him here - they'd have used a silencer, of course. No-one to hear, no one to see - if the body hadn't been found as soon as it was, these bloodstains would have been washed away by rain quite soon. There's a thunderstorm due tonight."
"We came round to have a look earlier - never saw a thing," admitted Helford. "Just goes to show, unless you're looking you just don't see. A dark patch on the grass, so what? There was a delivery driver here earlier - he didn't see either. Any hope in that bullet casing?"
"That's the most helpful thing, but unless we find a gun to match....look, don't take this the wrong way, but apart from leaving the body here, which I find odd, this lot haven't made any mistakes."
"We have a theory about that, but we'll know more when your boys have finished all the work on the two other bodies."
"Boys?" grinned the officer. "Look again, Detective Inspector."
Helford scrutinised the crouching figures in their protective clothing. Two were female. "I'm behind the times, as usual," he groaned, and left the workers to do their job.
Dean had brought a chair to sit beside Imogen behind the Reception desk, and was writing down telephone numbers of delivery companies. He jumped up guiltily when his boss appeared, and followed him back up to the office upstairs.
"Did you get any sports fixed up for your lads?" he asked. Helford looked rueful. "They only had the rockwall left, and the zip-wire. They've done that already on holiday, they're going to kill me. Anyway, never mind that, you check for leaking vans and I'll see some more people about......things." With that he left Dean alone.