The Bungalow-3

Continued from Chapter 2: The Bungalow-2 | ABCtales

Hawke invited the policewoman in for a cup of tea – he didn’t want to sound unhelpful – but was relieved when she declined, saying she needed to get back to the cordon. On the lane, he’d briefly described his outing with Hayley. The al fresco sex in the woods was, in his telling, ‘stopping for a long chat’. If the officer thought it peculiar, she didn’t say so.

“By the way, I have to go into London tomorrow morning,” he added. Hayley – Mrs McNally – at number 49A’s giving me a lift to the station. That OK?”

“It’ll be fine, I’m sure. But please keep your phone switched on, if you can.”

“Sure.”

A helicopter clattered briefly overhead and a police four-by-four cruised slowly down the lane. Over the hedge, in the middle a blue tent, white hooded SOCO officers gathered around, some of them crouching on the grass, one with a metal-detector.

Hawke closed the front porch door gently and thoughtfully. He resisted the urge to draw the curtains immediately; with the evening sun still bright, that would only draw suspicion.

It was too late now to call Valerie. He’d message her on Whatsapp to explain.

Hawke went into the spare bedroom at the back that he’d made into a study and turned on the computer. He clicked on Explorer and opened ChatGPT, then started to type in: ‘How would police search for weapons…’ before quickly erasing it. No guarantee they wouldn’t look at his computer at some stage; those forensic IT guys would probably be able to tell what he’d been searching for. Better leave that one for next time he was in Purley library. He rebooted the computer, then went back to Google and typed: ‘Thames Clipper Timetable’.

Nine PM. The night was drawing in, at last. He went into the study and twisted the slats of the wooden venetian blinds closed, with the road that dangled from the top of the window. They needed a dust, he noted. Then, quietly, he went into the front porch and slowly pulled the curtains closed. The grubby cream-coloured material snagged on the cords above the windows; he couldn’t remember when he last used them. He carefully checked for gaps. Hawke opened the wooden whisky box and pulled out the semi-automatic, and the ammunition. He took them into the study. Gently, silently, he prised up the piece of loose parquet near the window and then levered up the piece of loose floorboard underneath. He reached into the cavity, fumbled momentarily and then drew out two more guns - a snub-nosed revolver and an old East European police-issue automatic, both in worn black paint. He reached in again and pulled out two small brown cardboard boxes with faded, indecipherable lettering on yellow labels, then a third and a fourth. He put back the piece of floorboard, then slid the parquet back into position over it.

‘Guns always lead to trouble’, he could hear his old man saying in that cod-Brummie accent he always affected when he quoted sayings and aphorisms, nobody knew why. Perhaps the only sensible people he’d known came from the Midlands. Well, that was certainly true now. The only other person who knew about his small collection had been Marjorie – until today.

So, the guns would have to go, just in case the police did start to nose around. If they found three guns, they might well conclude that there had been a fourth, disposed of after the event.

Hawke wouldn’t describe himself as a gun fanatic. He liked them as objects and, who knows, in his line of work they could come in handy one day. Every so often, he’d go into the fields round the back of the bungalow and fire one or other of them off. He’d wait until it was dark, and someone was out shooting rabbits. An expert would know of course that it was a different type of gun, but it wouldn’t arouse the suspicions of a casual listener.

He contemplated getting the old perfume bottle that was still on the dressing table where Marjorie had left it and spraying it into the spaces where the guns and ammo had been; they might use dogs at some stage. He’d always said that Arabian Nights was powerful enough to stop a heavyweight at 20 paces. No, he thought again. Probably wouldn’t work – and an overpowering smell of heavy perfume would in itself be suspicious. Very suspicious.

Hawke reached up onto the shelf above the computer and pulled out a handful of large, used jiffy-bags. He discarded the first two – they had his name and address in black felt-tip – and selected the third, unmarked one. He dropped the three guns inside. Then Hawke slid open the bottom drawer of the old dark green filing-cabinet, reached into the back and took out a sheaf of coloured photo prints and half a dozen magazines with creased, faded covers. ‘Mayfair’ was the title of the topmost. He thrust the mags and photos into the fourth, unmarked, jiffy bag.

He opened the internal door and took both bags into the garage. An opened bag of builder’s sand lay against the back wall. Hawke reached for a gardening trowel on the shelf and carefully filled each jiffy bag with sand – four trowelfuls each. Then he went each bag in turn. When he was satisfied, he took the two now heavy envelopes into the study, laid each flat on the table and closed the ends with the heavy-duty stapler.

To be continued in Chapter 4