Imposture (DI Gardener 6)

“Sounds like the perfect couple,” said Reilly, “but someone wanted them dead.”

“What was the house like?” Gardener asked.

“Large,” said Rawson, “with a double garage but only one car inside.”

“Any idea what they did for a living?”

Sarah Gates jumped in. “One or two people indicated that David Hunter worked for a bank in Leeds.”

“Does anyone know which one?”

“No,” said Longstaff, “but judging by the place they lived in it didn’t look like they had any money problems.”

“Okay,” said Gardener, “in that case, can you ladies have a look around the house, see if you can find any personal documents that will give us a lead? I’d particularly like any computers that you find, and also a phone for David Hunter.”

The girls nodded.

“We had a phone for Ann Marie, didn’t we?” asked Paul Benson. “Did that reveal anything?”

“No,” said Gardener. “All we found were a number of texts from what we take to be friends. So perhaps you and Patrick can go through it and identify everyone who has called or sent a text, and follow up on anything that’s amiss?”

Patrick Edwards nodded, taking notes.

Gardener took a sip of water. “The big question here is, does anyone have anything on the collision, or possible accident?”

“We’ve drawn a blank on that, sir,” said Julie Longstaff. Gardener had transferred Longstaff from the station in Bramfield because she had a very valuable knowledge of computers. She was around six feet in height with shoulder length blonde hair and brown eyes. At twenty-five, Longstaff was single, dedicated and would, in his opinion, work well with Sarah Gates; both were an asset to the team as Bob Anderson and Frank Thornton were both on compassionate leave.

“We picked up something,” said Colin Sharp, meaning he and Dave Rawson.

Rawson took over. “We found a couple who came out of The Malt public house sometime around eleven thirty. They reckoned they saw a stationary vehicle nestled between two overhanging elms in the park, off the Main Street. It was opposite a row of two-storey cottages, in the vicinity of the church of St. Mary’s.”

“Interesting,” said Gardener.

“Don’t suppose they got the number plate?” Reilly asked.

“No,” replied Sharp. “They didn’t really hang around, and they live in the opposite direction.”

“But they mentioned that the engine was running and four people were inside,” said Rawson. “They saw that as they left the pub and drew a little closer to the vehicle.”

“Four people?” questioned Reilly.

“Yes,” said Sharp, “with the engine running.”

“Which suggests they were waiting there for a reason,” said Gardener.

“Did you get any more info?” Reilly asked.

“It was a 4x4,” said Sharp, “but they couldn’t say what make. Neither husband nor wife have ever owned a car in their life so they have no idea about cars.”

“And it was white,” added Rawson.

“That’s a start,” said Gardener. “Given that there was quite a large pile of debris on the road, do we have a paint sample?”

“Yes,” said Edwards. “The fingertip search also gave us the remains of one or two more parts to go with it; broken bits of plastic. No idea what they are but a couple of them have numbers on.”

Gardener thought about that for a moment. It was something. “In that case, send off what you can for forensic analysis. That should give us the manufacturer, and with a bit of luck the make and model. From there, we can start to look at how common the vehicle is, how old.

“If we get all of that information we can have you looking at dealerships and probably auctions. Let’s see who bought one. You can also search the DVLA database for the make, model and colour and see if we can then narrow it down to postcodes.”