Murder on the Commons (A Davies & West Mystery Book 4)

by Will North

  “How do you know all this?” Morgan asked, as she pulled her quilted vest—the only concession she’d yet made to the gathering cold weather—close around her chest. “I thought you were from down south, in St. Ives.”

  “My grandfather and great grandfather were stonecutters here,” he said as he led Morgan to the shelter of the inn. “When the quarries folded, my Dad saw it coming, trained as a mechanic, and set up shop in St. Ives. End of story.”

  “And now here you are up north again.”

  “I am, and grateful that you believed in me enough to bring me on.”

  They ducked under the low door to the lounge bar and took a moment to let their eyes adjust. The bar was nestled between thick stone walls and glowed with warm light. Opposite was a small space, the “Cozy,” where a coal fire glowed red in a shallow granite hearth. Bishop sat at a three-legged, round cricket table close to the fire. Adam asked the young woman at the bar what Bishop was drinking.

  “Doom Bar. What ‘e alis do. ‘Oo wants to know?” She had a bob of jet black, dyed hair, a silver stud in the left side of her nose, an attitude, and a deeply scooped and revealing fuzzy jumper advertising her assets.

  “We’re friends. Let’s have three pints of Doom, then,” he said. Morgan watched his eyes drift, drawn as if by magnetism to the shadowy cleft between her breasts. She shook her head and wished the girl luck. She didn’t have much to work with but she was doing her best.

  Bishop, short, wiry, and so bald he might just as well have shaved his tanned skull, faced the fire and peered at this week’s Cornishman, as if nearsighted, the newspaper neatly folded lengthwise so as not to take up too much table space. Adam put a light hand on his shoulder and slipped the fresh pint next to his nearly empty jar, then sat opposite. Morgan pulled up another chair, the warmth of the fire at her back. She thought he might be in his mid-seventies.

  Bishop set the newspaper aside and blinked. “Ah seen ya avore, lad, eh? Sunday roast summat past? ‘Ad a bit of a chin wag?”

  Adam smiled. “Right you are. That’s some memory, Bishop!”

  He squinted at Morgan. “Oose this lass, then? Yew gwain courtan this un? Bit auld fer ya, no?”

  Morgan scowled. She’d caught the gist.

  “She’s my boss, Bishop. We’re detectives.”

  “Arr’ee!”

  ‘Yes, and we need to have a chat with you, if that’s convenient.”

  “Mavis’ll be speckt’n me.” But he took a long pull on his fresh pint, pouring the dregs of the other into the fresh jar and did not budge, nodding thanks in the direction of the tabletop. Morgan put a restraining hand on Adam’s forearm. She could smell shyness, even fear in the older man.

  “Mr. Bishop, hello. I’m Detective Inspector Morgan Davies and we just want to ask you a few questions. It’s nothing you’ve done, it’s more about your work at the Poldue estate.”

  Bishop unclenched his right hand from the pint and sat back.

  “Fine they Cuthbertsons be. Bishop sarve them fer years.”

  “What do you do on the estate?” She was intrigued that he referred to himself as if discussing a third person.

  “Oh, Bishop be hedgin, fixin latchen posts, an’ suchlike. Shift sheep, low ta high en back. Tha Cuthbertson fella, ‘e don wan es trousies dabber’d. Wha Bishop’s fer.”

  Morgan looked at Adam.

  “He does a lot of maintenance. Has for years. Moves their sheep to new fields. Owner’s not involved in the day-to-day anymore.”

  “What about the daughter, Bishop?” Morgan asked gently.

  The old man’s eyes brightened.

  “Er be a doxy maid, tha douter.”

  Adam looked at Morgan but she just nodded. She was getting the hang of the dialect.

  “She claims she looks after the condition of the upland moor, beyond their in-bye fields,” Morgan said.

  “Aye, she do. Knows wha she’s about does tha one. Walks tha moor, she does. ‘As ideas abut the downses. Reckons they need a swale. But auld man don listen ta her. Bloody shame.”

  “A swale?” Morgan asked.

  “Why’s her father not listening?” Novak interrupted.

  “Girl, is why, innit?” Bishop shook his nearly barren skull. “Sad. Estate strugglin’. Tha Cuthbertson chap? Ah telly what: losin it e’ is, ah reckon.”

  Morgan nudged Adam’s shoulder.

  “Cuthbertson doesn’t listen to her. Doesn’t respect her, no matter that—or perhaps because—she’s only his daughter. She wants to manage the moor more aggressively, burn off some areas—that’s ‘swalin’—to spark new growth. Bishop respects her.”

  “Ah telly what else fer nuffin. Er muther, the missus? She be ‘igher quarter.”

  Adam smiled, turned to Morgan, and winked. “Reckon he thinks highly of Mrs. Cuthbertson.”

  Morgan wanted to move on. For one thing, her stomach was rumbling, and she wanted to get home to help Calum and the girls with supper.

  “The daughter, Jan, does she have friends Mr. Bishop? Visitors? Boyfriends?”

  Bishop looked at the fire before answering and took another long pull from his jar. It was nearly drained. “Blaint no odds, w’me, but ah reckon ah blinched ‘er wif a gent. Keepin’ company, but sly, like.”

  Morgan was about to pounce but Adam touched her arm.

  “Reckon they be court’in, my friend?” Adam asked quietly.

  “Cain telly.”

  On this, Bishop rose. “I be leebin fer Mavis now. Ta fer tha pint.”

  When he reached the door, he called back, “Furriner, ah reckon.”

  They heard him fire up his aging Land Rover, the landsman’s reliable, all-purpose overland vehicle, and then he was gone.

  Morgan was still looking at the door. “Foreigner?”

  Novakv chuckled. “Could be from just over the border in Devon for someone like Bishop.”

  “Very funny. But that wily old fellow knows more. I feel it. I want to bring him in.”

  Twenty-Eight

  “YOU’RE LOSING YOUR touch, Brian. My call didn’t go to your voicemail but it didn’t disconnect, either, which means you’re recording this or maybe even listening, you dodgy bastard. And though I am indeed using an untraceable phone, it’s just your old friend in the terrorism squad, Calum West. I need to have a friendly, but private chat with you about a case—rather urgently. When you can take a moment from your busy schedule, call me back at this number. Don’t use your office phone.”

  Calum’s daughters hadn’t returned from school yet, though they’d be home soon. He was in his favorite chair in the sitting room and had a coal fire started in the hearth before him. He preferred wood, but there was something primitive about coal, the slightly acrid smell, like a vestigial memory. It made him remember peat fires at his grandmother’s cottage at the north edge of Bodmin, long ago. You could cut, stack, and dry peat from bogs up on the Commons back then and take it home as fuel when it dried. Calum’s father had died soon after the end of the war, when Calum was only a toddler, and then his mother, unable to face raising a child alone, had done a bunk. He had no idea where she was, or even if she were still alive. His grandmother, a former schoolteacher and a widow, had taken him into her charge and raised him to her own high standard, taught him to question everything, seek his own truths, and think with care. She’d been a voracious reader of popular fiction and had been especially fond of Conan Doyle. She taught her students, and she taught Calum, the Holmesian rule, the one-sentence definition of deductive reasoning: once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. “There’s no shortage of wooly thinkers out there, Calum,” she said over and over. “Don’t be one of them.”

  And he wasn’t. She was long gone now, but her love and instruction had made him who he was today, and he thanked her every night before going to bed. She’d met her first granddaughter, Kaitlin, before she passed and pronounced her strong-willed and bright, her highest compliment. And she’d been right.
<
br />   He tossed a few more coals from the scuttle onto the fire. His new mobile rang within thirty minutes of his call to Mathison.

  “What mischief are you up to now, West. Jesus, it’s been a while.”

  “Is it my fault there’s been a decline in terrorism attacks that needed my expert attention in London?”

  Mathison laughed. It was a laugh redolent of companionship, long experience, and respect. “No, you’re right. Surveillance is high, but events are quiet for now, thank God.”

  “Good. I want to talk to you about surveillance.”

  There was silence at the other end of the line. Then, “Who? Where?”

  “People you and yours may know, the IRA. Specifically, the New IRA. Specifically, possible involvement with Merseyside Police.”

  Mathison paused. “A bit out of your jurisdiction, no?”

  “We have a murder down here, Brian. A diabolical one. And the more we dig into it, the more it seems to involve Merseyside in something that may be deeper—and dangerous.”

  West filled his colleague in on the case details. At the end, Mathison was silent for what seemed to West an eternity. He heard his friend take a deep breath.

  “Most of what you’ve told me about your DCI’s contacts with Merseyside do sound like they’re protecting something…or someone. Still, if I’m honest, I’d turn you away, mate, except for what you’ve said about the Garda. We respect them here. Could they have reasons of their own to deceive your people? Maybe. But we deal with them all the time and they’ve been reliable allies. If they say they’ve had no contact with Liverpool, despite Liverpool’s claims, I’d listen to them. I’d believe them.

  “I’m not plugged in to our IRA watchers these days, Calum. I’m mostly on Al-Qaeda watch here. But I will talk to our people. And I believe you. There’s not a hair-brained gene in you, West. And it will be interesting to see if our own colleagues here have been watching Merseyside for any reason at all.”

  WHEN MATHISON RANG off, Calum went to the kitchen, pulled out a bottle of amber Doom Bar, and poured the ale into a pint glass. He never drank from a bottle. He was back in his favorite chair when his girls bounced in from school.

  “Daddy, you’re home early!” Megan cried.

  At eleven, Kaitlin was old enough to look after her younger sister in the late afternoon and Calum tried at least to be home in time to make dinner and set them to work on homework. His late wife had been gone long enough now that the pattern seemed normal, even comforting.

  “I had some calls I needed to make from home, so here I am and I’m sure that ruins all the troublesome plans you two had for the afternoon.”

  “No!” Megan said as she climbed into his lap and gave him a hug. Calum wondered if there was anything more magical than having two young daughters. The three of them had become best friends. Still, Kaitlin, ever the thinker, stood apart.

  “Is everything okay, Dad?” she asked.

  Calum reached out his hand to her and she took it. “All is well, my little worrier. It was just work.”

  He released Megan and said, “Are you ladies hungry? Do you need something before we start dinner?”

  Megan didn’t let Kaitlin answer. “No! What’s for dinner?!”

  “I stopped at that farm shop outside Boscastle and picked up some rattlesnake. It was on offer. How’s that sound? I’m thinking thin sliced, sautéed with a little garlic and extra virgin olive oil, parsley, thyme, touch of lemon. Eh? Maybe rice?”

  “Eew!” Megan cried.

  Kaitlin shook her head. “It’ll be chicken, right? Garlic, white wine, olives, herbs, as usual.”

  Calum looked at Megan and smiled. She was growing fast and already was nearly as tall as her older sister. He winked at Kaitlin.

  “Okay, if you both must have it that way, I’ll put the rattlesnake in the freezer for another time. Chicken it is.”

  Megan skipped around the sitting room, giggling. Kaitlin remained where she stood.

  “Okay, you two hooligans, off you go to attend to schoolwork. I’ll get things started.”

  A few minutes later, Kaitlin stole into the kitchen as Calum was cutting the chicken into sections. She was so silent he jumped when she spoke.

  “Is Morgan coming?”

  Calum turned from the kitchen counter. Kaitlin was staring at him intently. He wasn’t sure how to respond. Her face was serious, her young forehead furrowed in a frown. He put down the chef’s knife, rinsed his hands, and sat at the kitchen table.

  “Would that be a problem?”

  Kaitlin sat at the table opposite, her hands folded on the tabletop. She didn’t answer directly. She seldom did. “You’re better now. You’ve gone back to work a little. She was taking care of you while you were sick. And us as well, which was nice. But now you’re better.”

  “Yes. She was. And yes, I am. A bit.”

  “You scared us, Megan and me, you know. Like Mum dying.”

  “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say. He’d never talked with his older daughter in this manner before. She was in charge. He waited.

  Kaitlin tilted her head slightly and gave just the hint of a smile. “Is Morgan your girlfriend, Daddy?”

  Calum blinked. “Well, we have worked together for many years and I respect her hugely.”

  Kaitlin was having none of it. She stared at him, her eyes fierce. “Is she your girlfriend? Yes or no? Do you love her?”

  He didn’t know how to answer. He suddenly felt interrogated. By his own daughter. He took a trick from Morgan’s playbook and deflected. “Do you?”

  Kaitlin drew her head back, nodded so briskly her hair danced, and flashed a big smile. “Yes, we both do, Megan and me. She’s special. We talk about her a lot. At night in bed. We think she loves you.”

  Just then, Morgan burst through the back door to the kitchen. They hadn’t heard her car.

  “I’m starving! What’s for dinner?!”

  Kaitlin grinned and stood up. “Rattlesnake!” she said before she skipped out of the kitchen.

  Morgan watched her go and looked a question at Calum.

  “They’re on to us, you know,” he said.

  Day Thirteen

  Twenty-Nine

  AS A COURTESY to the old man, Adam collected Bishop at his home on Saturday morning and ferried him the few miles to the Bodmin headquarters.

  “Wha’s this ‘bout, then,” Bishop asked in the car. He was sitting opposite Novak in the passenger seat. His hands were clasped in his lap and the knuckles were as white as the cold mist blanketing the low spots on the moor. “I done nuthin’.”

  Adam reached over and gave the clenched hands a reassuring pat. “It’s nothing to do with you, my friend. It’s just that Detective Inspector Davies has a few more questions she thinks you could help us with. About a case we are investigating. Maybe you can help us solve it.”

  Bishop nodded at the thought he might be of value.

  “Sporty ride you ‘ave,” Bishop said, admiring Adam’s car. “This official?”

  Novak laughed. “No, this is mine.”

  “Yer Da, ‘e were mechanic if’n ah recall.”

  “Right the first time. But he’s gone now. Mum too.”

  “Shame, that is.”

  They rode the rest of the way in silence. Novak took a space in the landscaped, semi-circular public car park in front of the building. He wanted Bishop to come through the main entrance like a guest, not the door in the back where the squad cars parked. He badged the two of them through security in the light-filled three-story glass atrium. Bishop looked around, awestruck.

  Upstairs in the incident room, Morgan was waiting with a fresh cup of coffee for Bishop and an Eccles cake she’d picked up at Barnecutt’s Bakery on her way to the office. She’d had to struggle not to buy more; at this early hour, the place was redolent with warm, fresh-baked, very fattening pastries.

  She rose and took his hand. “Welcome, Mr. Bishop. I’m sorry we had to disturb you on a Saturday morning, but th
is should not take long.” She pushed the coffee and pastry forward across a small conference table. Bishop looked around. He’d never seen so many computers and other electronic gizmos before.

  “Let’s sit, shall we? How is your wife? She has the most lovely lavender eyes. You must be very proud.”

  Bishop smiled and took a sip of coffee, eyeing the pastry beside it.

  “Long time, we be. Reckon I be lucky.”

  “Her too, I should think.”

  Bishop nodded shyly and picked up the black currant-filled puffed pastry. Flakes fell on his chest when he bit. He passed a hand across his mouth and looked at Davies. Novak stood apart.

  “Whachew be wantin’ with Bishop this day?”

  Davies smiled and waved away his worry.

  “Just a few questions is all, sir.” She leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling, as if trying to remember a story. Bishop looked up, too.

  “A week or more ago a body was found up near Rough Tor…”

  “I hear’d.”

  “Yes, it was in the news. What wasn’t in the news was that Jan Cuthbertson found it late that afternoon and reported it. She was up there.”

  “Allis is.”

  “Yes, so I gather. Detective Novak here, and one of his colleagues, went to Poldue to interview her that night. As you might imagine, she was pretty upset. And we couldn’t retrieve the victim until the next morning.”

  “Too dangerous.”

  “Yes, exactly. As it turned out, Jan’s parents were at a meeting of the Landowners’ Association that night. But when Novak and his colleague were about to turn into the drive to Poldue Manor, another car raced out. Novak here reckons it was a big Range Rover. Silver. But Ms. Cuthbertson claims no one visited her that night.”

  Bishop took another bite from the Eccles cake, used his tongue to clear crumbs from his lips, and said nothing.

  “You mentioned yesterday at the Old Inn that Ms. Cuthbertson sometimes had a visitor. You suggested she’s kept it a secret. A boyfriend perhaps?”

  Morgan waited for more. It didn’t come. Finally, she asked, “Do you think you know who it is?”