Chapter 4: Hiding A Body

Carrying the new piece of glass carefully up the ladder, I pressed it into the putty until it was bedded in all around. After tapping a few small pins in to hold it in place, I added more putty, then smoothed it over, wiped all my putty fingerprints off the glass, then cleaned up after myself.’

‘Putting the ladder away again, I thought to myself, I must pick up another lock and chain.’

‘Going inside I found the engineer had just finished, so I settled up with him and went to the front door to see him out. As soon as he had gone, I stood at the door looking up and down the road to see if I could spot a strange vehicle that might belong to the intruder. After careful study I decided it was one of three possibilities. Returning to the kitchen, I put on a fresh pair of disposable gloves, took the intruders car keys out of the bag then stood at the front door.’

‘Looking around to check no one was about, I pointed the key fob towards the first car I thought might be the one. Nothing happened. I did the same with the second one and again nothing happened. It was the same with the third one, but as I turned to come in, my eye caught a single blink from the indicator of a van further down the road. I pointed the fob directly at it with an immediate response. I locked it again right away then put the keys back in my bag.’

‘Going out as if for a walk a few minutes later, I passed the van. I stopped as if to deal with a text on my phone so I could make a note of the make, model and registration number before walking on, around the block and back home. So now I had identified the intruder, located his vehicle and had his dead body neatly wrapped up in the back of my van.’

‘That done I closed everywhere up and went inside for a well-earned mug of coffee. It was time to decide on my next course of action.’

‘Sitting in the house having my coffee, I thought through all my options.’

‘One, I could even now go to the Police and tell them what had happened.’

‘I discounted that immediately on the grounds that I would be in trouble for moving the body and attempting to conceal a crime. Even probably charged with murder and sent to prison.’

‘Two, I could wait until it was dark, then put the body into the intruder’s own van. Then either leave it where it was or drive it away somewhere.’

‘After some thought I discounted that as being too risky, a neighbour could easily spot me moving the van. I also assumed that when it was eventually found, because there would be a dead body in it, it would spark a murder hunt. Those of course are known to be amongst the most thorough and longest lasting of all police investigations. Apart from the risk of something being traced to me, I would be on edge for years to come.’

‘Three, I could leave the van where it was. I hadn’t touched it so there was no link between it, or anything in it, between me or my house.’

‘Four, I could dispose of the body myself.’

‘I decided that three and four where my best choices. Leave the van where it was and get rid of the body myself. If there was no body and the van was found, a known criminal would be missing. The Police would investigate but probably with less enthusiasm than usual. Nothing would suggest foul play, so with Police resources as they were, no one was likely to consider a murder hunt without any evidence.’

‘So, having decided that, the next question was how to get rid of the body and what to do with the knife, keys and cards I had saved.’

‘I already had an idea for disposing of the body, but I wasn’t sure what to do with the keys and cards. After some thought I decided to leave them in the bag for now. I had put them in the cupboard under the sink, so I would decide what to do about them after I had got the body safely disposed of.’

‘All my decisions made it was time for action. I had a job due to start in two weeks to excavate a piece of ground for a large concrete slab foundation. This involved digging out an area of ground twenty-five feet wide and twenty-five feet front to back, all to a depth of eighteen inches around the edges and twelve inches in the centre. Into the central area would be poured six inches of crusharun hardcore.’

‘This would be compacted with a vibrator plate. Next a layer of concrete would be poured in up to ground level. This concrete layer would have steel re-enforcing mesh in it for strength. When it was set, a building would then be constructed on it, but that part wasn’t my job.’

‘I rang the customer to say that I was unexpectedly able to start the job sooner so was it ok to go ahead. My customer was more than happy to agree. Another call to my present job got me a further three days absence without any problem, so a digger and vibrator plate were booked for delivery the following morning. A ten-ton load of crusharun was booked for mid-day, then twenty ton of ready-mix concrete was ordered for the next day.’

‘My friend Mark was booked for the second day to help spread and tamp level the concrete. The customer wanted to keep all the excavated spoil for their garden, so there was nothing that needed to be carted away.’

‘All I had to do was to fit the body in there somehow before the concrete was laid and without being seen.’

‘The next day I was at the job by seven o’clock marking out the site of the concrete base. Just after eight the hire lorry arrived to deliver me a mini digger plus a vibrator plate.’

‘I had used a mini digger on several occasions, so I had no problem getting to work right away. My customer wanted the spoil putting temporarily next to where the building was going, so that by lunch time it was all dug out and heaped up out of the way. I had dug an additional hole to the rear, six feet long, two feet wide and two feet deep. This extra hole I had lightly refilled, so it wasn’t noticeable.’

‘I hadn’t long finished when the delivery lorry arrived with the crusharun and six sheets of re-enforcing mesh each sixteen feet by eight feet. The mesh was unloaded to one side, then the crusharun was tipped into the excavation. By digging the ‘special hole’ at the back, the heap of crusharun didn’t cover it.’

‘I had thought of putting it in the middle but decided against that because of the possibility that if in the future, someone might cut a hole in the floor, the middle seemed more likely. Putting it close to the wall ruled that possibility out. I had also looked at the layout of the surrounding drains, to assess where no one was likely to run any pipes, if someone in the future decided to add a toilet to it.’

‘Using the digger, I spread the crusharun over all of the front two thirds, running the digger tracks over it to flatten it. Then I dug the loose spoil out of the special hole. Driving my van on two planks over the trench around the edge, I backed up as near the hole as I could. Once the back doors were open, I was fairly sheltered from view, so after a careful look around, I pulled the body to the back of the van.’

‘I remembered reading somewhere a long time ago, that a buried body wrapped in plastic was more detectable than one without. So, I cut the plastic open and slid the body out of the van, dropping it into the hole. I had left a heap of crusharun alongside, so I quickly shovelled that into the hole around the sides and over the top of the body.’

‘Putting the plastic wrapping and tape into a bin bag for disposing of later, I closed up the van and drove it back onto the road. I checked around carefully until I was sure no one had been looking, then continued to level off over the whole area with the digger.’

‘Once all of the central area was roughly level, I moved the digger out of the way then started the motor up on the whacker plate. The vibration from this not only compacted the crusharun together hard, but it also moves itself around as I steer. After running it over the whole area twice, then over the special hole several times, the digger and the plate were given a quick clean up and moved into the lane to await collection.’