Chapter 5: A Small White Patch

‘In fact,’ Tom said as he dialled, ‘Let me see if I can get hold of him now. It’s Tom, sir.’ he said. ‘I’m in Warrington with Mr and Mrs Hughes the current owners. I’ve suggested that next week I dig up the floor in the middle of their garage.’

‘I’ve suggested that we then send them and their two young boys to Centre Parcs for the week whilst I dig deeper. Then if forensics come in, they come without the usual uniformed guard as I’ll be here. That way they won’t attract attention. After they have finished, I’ll refill with hardcore before the family return from their holiday.’

‘Then I can return and put the floor slab back a couple of weeks later, when the filling has had chance to settle.’ ‘Ok Tom,’ ‘Well done, go ahead.’ the Super said. I’ll leave some more cash with Derek for you. If you need a hand getting the concrete up or down, hire someone.’

‘He’s agreed.’ Tom said after hanging up. ‘I’ll arrange for the container to be delivered in the next day or so. Then if you let me know as soon as the garage is empty, I’ll start inside. There’ll be nothing untoward for your boys to see other than building work at that stage, so there’s no need to keep them away.’

Before he left, Tom and Bill went and had a look around outside. Tom pointed out where the container should be put in case he wasn’t there when it arrived. ‘That position will allow me full access to the garage if I decide to use a mini digger.’ Tom told him.

That afternoon Tom arranged for a container firm to drop one off. They assured him it would be there the day after tomorrow. Tom let Bill know.

The next day Tom returned to Joe and Jeans. Over their first coffee Tom told them that all the medical details matched Graham Roberts. DNA will prove it without doubt, but we don’t want to contact his family until we find the other one. That’s why we haven’t informed the parents yet,’ Tom told them.

‘Partly so I can be finished here, and people won’t associate the digging with Graham being found. But mainly because tomorrow I start digging up the garage floor to look for the other body. We don’t want to draw attention to that either.’

After his coffee Tom started putting the soil back. He spread it out level when he was halfway up. Then he drove up and down over it several times to compact it. After lunch, he filled the rest in. Using up all the soli made the ground in the excavated area a few inches higher than the rest of the garden. He spent an hour driving up and down over it, by which time it was almost down level.

He hosed down the digger and parked it on the drive. Over a coffee he rang the hire firm to collect it. ‘Don’t do anything with the garden for a month,’ Tom told Joe and Jean. ‘It should have settled by then.’

As he was about to leave, Jean gave him a hug and a kiss. ‘Good luck with the wedding,’ she said, ‘And thanks for our new garden, even though I wish it hadn’t been necessary.’ Joe shook his hand and told him it had been a pleasure to meet him. ‘Being sent to do jobs like this on your own as a young constable,’ Joe told him, ‘Must mean you’re heading for promotion.’

On his way home he had a text from Bill to say the container had arrived and was in place. ‘The boys have already started loading it,’ he told him. ‘I’m trying hard to divert some of the junk to the car boot to take to the dump.’ That was followed by a smiley face.

MONDAY – TOM

Monday morning Tom discovered another text from Bill. ‘The garage is clear. I took two carloads to the dump, and the rest is in the container. The boys are over the moon about going to Centre Parcs.’

Tom called in at the station and updated the Super, collected some more cash and called at his local tool hire depot. He picked up a heavy-duty breaker, a visor, gloves and a dust mask.

Arriving at Bills, everyone was out. Tom let himself into the garage with the key Bill had given him. It was a single garage but wider than usual. He measured it to find it was twelve feet wide inside and twenty feet long.

He drew a chalk line on the floor all round, two feet out from each wall. Half an hour later he started attacking the concrete. It was hard going to start with, but once he had a foot square hole in the middle, he was able to break bits off easier.

After a while he had a lot of rubble in the way. He had a look in the back garden and saw no sign of a wheelbarrow. He locked up and went into Warrington. His phone directed him to a builder’s merchants where he bought a wheelbarrow and a roll of thick plastic damp proof membrane.

Returning to the house, he cut a twelve-foot length of membrane off the roll and opened it up. Unpacked it was twelve feet wide too. He spread it out on the drive. He wheeled out all the chunks of concrete he had already broken up. He would save all the concrete bits to go back in as hardcore. By the end of the day, he was halfway from the centre of the garage to the back and across the full width.

Just after four Margaret arrived home with Johnathan and Gerald. After being introduced to Tom, and being told not to get in the way, they immediately went to look in the garage. Their mum called them back. ‘Old clothes first.’ she instructed. They shot into the house to get changed.

Returning soon after, they went in and had a look at what Tom had done so far. ‘Building work is dangerous,’ Tom told them, ‘So when I’m using the breaker, you must stay outside the garage. But here’s a pair of safety glasses each,’ he said handing them out. ‘As long as you put these on, you can stand just inside the doorway and watch. You need those because small chips of concrete can fly out in all directions, and I don’t want you blinded.’

‘Anytime I stop the breaker and take my visor off,’ he told them, ‘It’s ok for you to take your glasses off and come right inside to see what I’ve done, ok?’ They both seemed happy with that.

Tom put his visor and mask on, and the two boys promptly put their glasses on and went and stood side by side in the doorway. Tom faced them and carried on working his way to the back of the garage so they could see what he was doing.

After a quarter of an hour, Tom put the breaker down and took his visor off. Both boys shot in to have a close up look at what he had done. He explained to them that the garage floor had been built on soft soil. ‘I’m going to take some soil out whilst you are on holiday,’ he told them. ‘Then after you come home, I’ll be laying a new concrete floor.’

He moved the concrete he had dug up out onto the heap on the drive. Then he locked up the garage, said goodbye to Margaret and the boys and went home.

TUESDAY

The next day, as he had started breaking up the concrete from the centre backwards for the boy’s benefit, he decided he would complete the back section first. By the time Johnathan and Gerald came home he was wheeling concrete out having broken up all of the back half of the floor up to within two feet of the walls.

They both shot into the house to get changed then came to see what he had done. They jumped down onto the soil and had a close look at the broken edges of the concrete. They seemed quite disappointed that Tom wasn’t going to use the breaker, so they didn’t need their glasses. ‘I forgot to mention,’ Tom said, ‘Those glasses are yours to keep.’ They both put them on then, even to watch him use the wheelbarrow.

WEDNESDAY

Overnight Tom had wondered if Albert might have been even more lazy about digging, knowing that a slab of concrete for the garage was going on top. He decided he had better think again about the idea of taking a foot of soil out before the boys went on holiday.

He carried on breaking up the concrete from the centre towards the front of the garage. He was still at it when the boys came home. He didn’t notice them until he glanced up and saw them already changed and standing with their glasses on, watching him.

He stopped and took his visor off to say hi. They both jumped down onto the soil and looked at how far he had got. ‘How deep do you have to go down?’ Gerald asked. ‘The simple answer is, I don’t know,’ Tom told him. ‘I have to take a layer of soil off at a time until I find a solid base. Then I put all the broken concrete back in the hole and fill it up with gravel.’