by Jan Newton
‘As my wife said, I would prefer to set the scene for you before you speak to them. We are very careful not to force them into stressful situations. Two of them are still undergoing quite intensive treatment and we wouldn’t want to undo all the good work, would we?’
‘No, Mr Wilkinson, we wouldn’t. But I do need to ask some routine questions to rule out any involvement in an extremely serious matter.’ Julie opened her notebook and flicked to a blank page. ‘So perhaps we could start with you.’
Wilkinson frowned. ‘I can assure you, Sergeant, that I have absolutely no information about the deceased person, nor indeed of any involvement of any of our guests in that matter.’
‘So you hadn’t seen a young woman in the area at any time prior to the discovery of her body on the Monks’ Trod?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘And you haven’t noticed any strangers around the farm, vehicles parked for long periods of time, anything out of the ordinary?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘And you would have noticed if there was anything, would you? You’re an observant sort of person?’
Wilkinson raised his eyebrows. ‘Sergeant, I have had a very long and very distinguished military career. If my powers of observation were not outstanding, I doubt if I would still be here to answer your questions.’
‘Quite, Sir.’ Julie beamed at him. ‘Jolly good.’
Mrs Wilkinson bustled in with cups and coffee pot on a tray and set them on the low table. Once coffee was poured and distributed, she perched on the arm of the sofa.
‘Just for the record, Mrs Wilkinson, I have to ask whether you have noticed anything unusual around here in the last two or three weeks.’ Julie smiled at her. ‘Anything at all?’
‘Nothing that I can think of, unless…’ she turned to her husband, who gave the slightest shake of his head and continued the movement more obviously as he bent to pick up his cup.
‘No, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘I think it must have been an errant rambler. We heard the sheep making rather a lot of noise late one evening recently, and we thought it might have been a fox, but the alpacas are extremely good guard dogs. If it had been a fox out there we would have heard them too.’
‘And can you remember when this was, Mrs Wilkinson?’
Howard Wilkinson put his cup down in the saucer so forcibly that coffee slopped onto the woollen rug beneath. Mrs Wilkinson leapt to her feet and scurried into the kitchen.
‘My wife tends to get a little confused about dates, Sergeant. It must have been at least two or three weeks ago now.’
‘That’s fine.’ Julie stood up as Mrs Wilkinson reappeared with a cloth and sheets of kitchen roll. ‘I’ll talk to your employees now, if I may, and then I’ll be out of your way.’
The three men were together in the first cottage. The bright red front door and pale oak and chrome interior were at complete odds with the men’s appearance. All three were on the thin side of slim and dressed in black walking trousers and navy polo shirts with the legend ‘H W Alpacas’. There was a small silver animal embroidered on the shirts, above the name, but it could have been a donkey or a large dog, for all Julie knew. The men stood in unison when Julie and Wilkinson entered the room.
‘As you were,’ Wilkinson said, as though speaking to one of the small silver animals on their chests, and the men sat, but they were, she noted, definitely not at ease.
‘This is Detective Sergeant Kite. She has a few routine questions for you. Please be as accurate and truthful as you can.’
‘Thank you, Sir, I won’t be long here and I’ll come and find you when I’ve finished.’
Wilkinson hesitated, but Julie held the door handle, looked out into the yard and waited for him to walk from the room. He didn’t say a word, but the rising colour in his veined cheeks gave the game away. Julie shut the door firmly behind him and turned to the three men.
‘There’s nothing to worry about guys, and whatever is said in this room won’t go any further unless it’s pertinent to the case. Is that understood?’ Two of the men nodded. The third stared steadfastly at his boots.
‘All I want to know from you is if you’ve seen anyone or anything up here in the last couple of weeks that might be useful to our enquiries.’ She pulled up a chair and sat facing them. ‘What exactly is it that you do here?’
‘We help out on the farm.’ The tallest of the three smiled at her. ‘It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s out of doors and heavy duty, which helps you sleep sometimes.’
The second man, a good head shorter than his colleague and looking all of sixteen, nodded. ‘And it’s teaching us a lot about farming, growing, looking after animals. It’s good, we’ll be able to get a job when we leave.’
‘And what about you?’ Julie turned to the third man, who was still staring at the floor. Unlike the other two, he had long, lank hair, which provided a curtain protecting him from his questioner. ‘Do you enjoy the work?’
The third man shrugged. ‘It’s OK.’
‘And have any of you seen anything unusual around here lately?’
The tall man leaned forward and spoke to the other two, quietly but forcefully. ‘We have to tell her, guys. It’s all going to come out in the end, one way or another.’
The younger man nodded. ‘Maybe the Sergeant won’t have to tell Major Wilkinson.’ He looked up at Julie and she wondered who had let this child go to war at all.
‘Well, if he doesn’t need to know, then I won’t have to tell him, will I? What is it that’s troubling you?’ she said to the third man. She bent down to peer under the curtain of hair and was horrified to hear that he was weeping quietly. She fished a crumpled tissue from her bag, straightened it, gave it a quick visual check and handed it to him. Now she knew how Swift’s clean linen hankie idiosyncrasy had developed.
‘He’ll throw me out.’
‘Who will?’
‘Wilkinson. It’s in his rules and regulations.’
‘What is?’ Julie resisted the urge to part the curtain of hair and get a good look at the man’s face, but he blew his nose and glanced up at her.
‘No visitors and no overnight stays. But he was in a bad way. Upset. Had nowhere to go.’ He sniffed. ‘And it was only for a couple of nights. He was no trouble.’
‘Let’s not worry about that now.’ Julie crouched next to the man and looked up at him. ‘So who was this man, and why was he here?’
There was a shrug, and the hair fell back into place. ‘He just said his name was Ard.’
‘Would that be short for something?’
Another shrug. Julie looked at the other two men. The tall man grinned. ‘Funny sort of name, I thought. He said he was Ardal. I only remembered it because it means area in Welsh.’
‘So you speak Welsh?’
The man shook his head. ‘I’m from Dorset, just a learner. I wanted to know what all the place names mean and how to pronounce them. It’s like being abroad again and I felt bad that I couldn’t even say the names.’
Julie nodded. ‘I know that feeling.’ She stood up slowly. ‘Well, at least we have a name for him. So, Ardal what? Any idea?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Well, why was he here? Did he stay here with you?’
The curtain of hair moved again. ‘We put him in one of the spare cottages. Well, I did. It was nothing to do with the others, it was all my idea. They just helped with a share of their food. He was out on his feet, starving. We didn’t think Mrs W would mind.’
‘Did you tell her?’
The three men exchanged glances and the tall man finally spoke. ‘We don’t want to get her into any bother. She’s been very good to us. She’d never have known, but we were cleaning the place after he’d left and she came round with a cake she’d just baked.’ He smiled. ‘She caught us with the hoover out.’
‘So you did tell her. But not the Major, is that about the size of it?’
The younger lad sighed. ‘We only told her after he’d gone. She did
n’t know anything about him being here. We felt bad about not being straight with her.’ He shrugged. ‘But she made us promise not to tell him, the Major. He’s a really good bloke, but he won’t tolerate anyone breaking his rules.’
‘OK, that’s fine, I won’t tell him either, not unless I have to, but I do need to know as much as you can remember about this man. How old was he, what colour was his hair, what was he wearing, were there any distinguishing features.’
‘Whoah, Sergeant.’ The tall man laughed. ‘Steady on. One question at a time. Didn’t anyone tell you’re we’re damaged goods?’
Julie laughed. ‘Sorry, I do that. Put it down to being impatient. Go on then, what can you tell me?’
‘Well I’d say he was probably late twenties, early thirties, blonde hair, blue eyes, leather jacket, jeans. Fancied himself a bit, but likeable all the same.’
Julie nodded. ‘Did he have transport?’
The young lad shook his head. ‘He said he’d walked from Ray… Where is it, Baz? You say it.’
‘Rhayader. He’d walked from Rhayader. He was looking for someone. He said he’d been let down.’
‘About what?’
‘Dunno. Did he say anything to you, Mick?’
The hair moved again, but this time it parted, and Julie saw Mick’s face for the first time. She had to stop herself staring. In all her years in the job, all the things she had seen and wished she hadn’t, this face was one she would never be able to get out of her mind, especially at three am when her insomnia kicked in. It wasn’t the puckered skin around his left eye or even the jagged scar, which ran from his nose to a point just below his jaw line. It went much deeper than that. His expression seemed devoid of anything at all, as though there was nothing beneath the flesh and bone. But it was his eyes that would haunt her. The only other time she had seen eyes like these, they had belonged to a young dog – a bearded collie – which her father had brought home when she was about seven. The dog had been badly beaten and her father had wrestled him away from the man who owned him. Julie had been so upset because the dog wouldn’t even look at her, he just sat cowering by her father’s chair. Weeks later, once the dog had been persuaded out of his new refuge under the kitchen table, he had looked at her with eyes just like these. Slowly, he’d learned to trust her, and for the next twelve years, until he died of old age, he was always by her side, protecting her. Would Mick ever trust anyone again? He spoke quietly, to a pattern on the rug at his feet.
‘He said a woman had stolen his sister’s son and he had come to find him.’ Mick looked up at Julie ‘He said he thought he knew where she was.’
Julie snapped the elastic band off her notebook and Mick flinched.
‘Sorry. Did he tell you where he thought she was?’
Mick shook his head. ‘Just somewhere not too far away was all he said.’ He hooked hair behind his right ear and looked at her. ‘Do you think he had something to do with what happened out there?’ He nodded towards the moorland.
‘It’s possible,’ Julie conceded eventually. ‘But even if he wasn’t involved, we’d like to speak to him, to eliminate him from our enquiries.’ She tapped her notebook with her pencil. ‘Did he give any indication of where he was going?’
The three men shook their heads.
‘Any sort of accent or dialect? Do you think he was local?’
Baz laughed. ‘He sounded a bit like you, Sarge. Up north was all he said when we asked him where he was from.’
‘So no idea of where up north he was talking about? He didn’t mention a town?’
The three of them shook their heads in unison. It was like trying to get information out of the three wise monkeys.
‘And how long was he here?’
‘Two nights,’ Baz said.
‘And can you tell me the dates?’
A shrug and two head shakes. ‘Every day’s pretty much the same up here.’ The youngster spoke this time.
‘But Mrs Wilkinson came up here the day after he’d left, bearing cake, didn’t she?’ Julie tapped her pencil on her teeth. ‘She might remember when it was. And you said he was here for the two nights immediately before that?’
‘Don’t speak to her when he’s there.’ Mick suddenly flashed her a look that gave her hope that he might have fight left in him. ‘Promise you won’t drop her in it.’
Julie held up a hand and shook her head. ‘I promise I won’t drop her in it. But I do need to establish exactly when he was here, what time he arrived and what time he left.’
‘That’s fair enough, Mick.’ Baz stood up. ‘If you let us have a word with her while he’s not around, we’ll phone you tomorrow with dates and times.’ He walked towards the door. ‘Is that it, then?’
‘Almost. Did you notice any distinguishing features? Scars, tattoos, anything else you can remember?’
‘He had a tattoo.’ Mick pointed to the inside of his wrist. ‘Here. It was some sort of flower. It could have been a rose. A red rose.’
Julie closed her notebook, stood up and walked to where Baz was standing. ‘I’ll need one or all of you to come to the station tomorrow and we’ll put together an impression of what this man looked like.’
Baz blushed. ‘I’m not sure we can do that, Sarge. The Major doesn’t like us to leave the farm without him or Mrs W. It might be difficult for us to get to you without causing problems. He’d need to know why wouldn’t he?’
‘I can draw him for you if you like.’ Three heads turned towards Mick.
‘I didn’t know you could draw,’ Baz laughed. ‘You’re a dark horse.’
‘There’s a lot about me you don’t know,’ Mick said. He walked over to the dresser and pulled out an artist’s pad and a tin of drawing pencils and pastels. He smiled, almost imperceptibly. ‘Make the Sarge a brew while I do this.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Day Four
Julie was staring at her computer screen when Swift arrived in the office. She had uploaded and enlarged the little piece of city map from Rosa’s bag, and was poring over the dense housing and unusually straight roads.
‘Any joy with Mark Robinson, Sir? Did he come up with anything else?’
Swift walked over to her desk and glanced at the screen. ‘No, nothing new, and I have to admit he seems pretty genuine to be honest with you. He said he’d made sure none of the kids had taken anything or found anything up there and he’s sure only Owen saw the body.’ He leaned further towards the screen and perched his glasses on his forehead. ‘Well there’s not much to go on there, is there?’
Julie shook her head. ‘I can’t believe there’s so little on this map. There are five places of worship, one with a tower and one with a spire, minaret or dome, according to Ordnance Survey. Then there are six schools, two colleges, a library, a station and an Ice Dome, all within about a mile and a quarter.’ She grimaced. ‘But there are no road numbers, no rivers and nothing else that would be blindingly obvious.’
Swift let his glasses drop back into position. ‘Even the railway station is anonymous.’ He stood up and frowned. ‘That bit to the west of the caravan site, the very top left-hand corner. Could that be beach?’
Julie clicked on the tiny pale orange triangle where Swift had been pointing and enlarged it. ‘I think you could be right, Sir. So if that’s beach, then this oblong job here could be part of a pier?’
‘So that’s narrowed it down then, Julie. All you need to find is a seaside town with a pier and well-educated, God-fearing ice-skaters.’
‘Right, Sir. I’ll get onto seaside Ice Domes then.’
Rhys, Goronwy and Morgan burst into the room, discussing a disputed high tackle in last night’s rugby match, although Julie thought this might not have been the only explanation for Rhys grabbing Morgan round the neck and attempting to drop him to the floor. There were still occasions when she would like to attempt that move on him herself. The three of them sauntered over to the board, still shoving each other like schoolboys. Julie pinned an enlarged copy of
the map onto the board and then reached under her desk and retrieved a large carrier bag. ‘This might be altogether more enlightening, Sir.’ She removed the bag and handed Mick’s drawing of the stranger to Swift.
‘Someone’s talented then. You haven’t done this, have you?’
‘Not in a million years. I got thrown out of art lessons at school. I was so bad, the teacher thought I was taking the mickey,’ Julie laughed. ‘It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I got to do chemistry instead.’
‘The detail on this is absolutely stunning,’ Swift said. ‘Look at the depth in that face.’ He held it at arm’s length. ‘That’s impressive, that is. Who is he?’
‘It turns out the boys at the farm found a waif and stray up in the hills on the farm’s land and took pity on him. They let him stay for a couple of nights in one of the cottages. He said he was looking for a woman.’ Goronwy chuckled, which earned him a look from Swift. Julie dug her notebook out of her bag and flicked through the pages. ‘They said, “a woman had stolen his sister’s son and he had come to find him”. And this is the best bit, Sir, they thought he knew where they both were.’
