THE DCI BLIZZARD MURDER MYSTERIES: Books 1 to 3

by John Dean

  ‘May I?’ asked Colley, nodding at Ramage.

  ‘Be my guest,’ said Blizzard, gesturing with his hand.

  ‘Henderson,’ said Colley with an affable smile. ‘Tell me about the little get-togethers in Hut 23.’

  Ramage started slightly and his lawyer looked at him. Ramage’s confusion was but momentary, and within seconds his face had regained its surly expression, but it was enough for the sergeant. His job was to spot chinks in armour.

  ‘I am waiting,’ said Colley.

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ said Ramage, the first time he had looked uncomfortable. ‘Honest I don’t, Mr Colley.’

  ‘I think perhaps you had better start enlightening us,’ said Blizzard, uncomfortably aware that he did not know what his sergeant was talking about either.

  ‘I think there has been more going on at Green Meadow Farm than our Mr Ramage has been letting on,’ said the sergeant. He turned to Blizzard with a mischievous look. ‘How do you fancy a little trip out?’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ said the bemused detective.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Colley, standing up with a scrape of the chair. ‘Then might I suggest your root out your wellies.’

  Chapter seven

  The memories hung thick as cobwebs in Hut 23. And there were plenty of cobwebs in Hut 23. Standing wrinkling his nose in the musty atmosphere created by a mixture of dust and decay, tinged with decades of old engine oil and rotted animal feed, John Blizzard felt the memories strongly even though they were not his. Felt the presence of those who had gone, heard their voices and the song and banter of comradeship. Felt he knew the men who had once lived out their lives within the hut’s walls, could see them reading, playing cards or writing letters home in the dim light. It was a strange feeling, like he was standing to one side, allowed a tantalising glimpse into the past. Like everything was being played to him as if it were on black-and-white film; a film to which he knew only part of the ending. Knew that its participants now lay cold and silent in Peter Reynolds’ mortuary at the city hospital.

  And always Blizzard felt the man’s presence, stronger than before. Knew now why the events at the farm had so disturbed him. Knew what this was all about. Knew who it was about. Had known from the start. Knew why it was happening and why he felt these unfamiliar feelings. It was to do with what the Americans called ‘closure’. Blizzard hated the word but had nevertheless felt that same need ever since he realised that he was on the road to fifty. The realisation, coupled with the death from cancer of two old school friends over the past two years and laced with his constant awareness that he was much older than Fee, had imbued the chief inspector with a sense of mortality for the first time in his life. It was a strange feeling, a sensation that somehow Fee had given him a reason to live that he did not have before, and had given him a desire to tidy up some loose ends. The man was a loose end, and in some way Blizzard could not yet understand, Hafton POW Camp was part of his story.

  Not that Blizzard was about to divulge any of his thoughts in public. These were private thoughts and not even Fee, nor Colley, had been privy to them although both had noted the pronounced changes in his demeanour since the bodies were found, and had asked him about it at different times over the past few days. Even a concerned Arthur Ronald had asked him if he was alright but Blizzard had said nothing, even though he was uncomfortably aware of the change in himself, too. For a man who had long prided himself on a single-minded, hard-headed approach to the job, such considerations were disturbing and even frightening. And distracting. And he did not like being distracted.

  Hut 23 stood at the furthest end of the camp complex. Reached by beating a muddy path through alder trees and straggly bushes, whose branches had scratched and clawed at the officers’ coats and faces, the huts stood silent and empty, some with gaping holes in their sloping roofs, others with windows blackened and cracked. Peering in through one of them as they made their way towards Hut 23, Blizzard could just make out in the gloom crumbling walls with faded murals running along one side. Painted by the German prisoners, they included a rudimentary depiction of a river, the Rhine presumably, and a crude image of poorly drawn cows in green fields. Images of a home which fifteen of the men would never see again. Maybe Horst Knoefler never saw it either. Who could tell?

  In the hut next to number 23, Blizzard saw the remnants of piled-up agricultural sacks and a rusted engine motor and another mural on a far wall, a faded image of Hitler, simply fashioned in black chalk yet sinister for all that, as the Führer stood with his arm raised in the familiar salute. Blizzard, who had spent part of the weekend reading about the camps, knew from the library books that such motifs at POW camps had been banned by the British military; found himself wondering at the mural’s survival into the 1990s. Peering through the window, letting the others walk on to Hut 23, he felt there was something very real, very now, about the picture. For all it was a long time since the prisoners lived there, the chief inspector felt as if they had never left. Until the previous week, he reminded himself, fifteen of them hadn’t.

  Thought of the murdered man brought Blizzard back to the present as, flanked by Ross and Colley, who was looking at him intently, he now stood in Hut 23, the most ramshackle of the lot. Large gashes in the roof had allowed the rain to pour in over the years with the result that the walls were damp and mould-infested and half the timber floorboards had rotted away, creating a hole six feet long and as much wide. The surviving floor was littered with rotted wood and clumps of plaster from the wall and the air was thick with damp; Blizzard could almost feel the spores of mould swirling about him. Realising that the others – Doctor Hamer and Elspeth Roberts – were looking for him to say something, Blizzard dragged himself from his reverie.

  ‘So how did you find it?’ he asked Ross, looking down at the hole.

  ‘Once we had done the graves, we started searching the huts,’ explained the forensics chief, pointing to the floor. ‘And found this.’

  Blizzard crouched and peered down. The area beneath the floorboards had been opened out to create what appeared to be a hiding place beneath the remaining timbers. In one corner, not noticeable unless you looked for them, were a couple of duvets, pillows and the remnants of food wrappers and drink cartons. In another corner, deep in the shadows, was an ashtray with a number of stubbed-out butts and several empty beer bottles. Blizzard recognised the brand of beer immediately. One of his favourites. A nice drop.

  ‘Not exactly the kind of things you would expect to be left over from a 1940s wartime camp, Graham,’ said Blizzard, glancing at Ross.

  ‘Indeed not. We haven’t had chance to do a full examination – thought you would like to see it all first – but it does not take a genius to work out they are modern. I had a glance at one of the bottles. Says the beer was brewed two years ago.’

  ‘So, what is it doing here?’

  ‘Ordinarily, I would have thought it was left by the farmhands,’ said Ross. ‘But this is the worst of the huts. Huts 1 and 4, for example, have their roofs on and are nice and dry. In fact, we sheltered in them when the rain came on yesterday. If you were going to hunker down and knock back a couple of beers out of sight of the farmhouse, they would be much more comfortable.’

  ‘No, I don’t think this is a social thing,’ said Blizzard, straightening up and grimacing as his knee emitted a cracking sound. ‘No, this is a hiding place sure enough, Graham.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Ross.

  Blizzard looked at Hamer and Roberts.

  ‘Could this be anything to do with your people? Maybe enjoying a quick snifter?’ The chief inspector glanced at the bedding and added slyly, ‘Or something else while on duty?’

  ‘No.’ Hamer shook his head. ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘Not archaeologists’ style, eh?’ said Blizzard, looking at Elspeth. ‘Any explanations, Mrs Roberts?’

  Determined not to be shown up this time, she also shook her head.

  ‘No, Chief Inspector,
’ she said. ‘None at all. It is most strange. As your officer here says, Hut 23 is in the worst condition of the lot.’

  ‘How come you did not find the duvet and the other things?’ asked Colley, who had been wandering round the hut, occasionally running a hand along its crumbling wall, but had now returned to stare into the hole.

  ‘I am pretty sure they were not there when I last came in here,’ said Roberts, a defensive tone in her voice.

  ‘Which was when?’ asked Colley.

  ‘Three months ago.’

  ‘Why so long?’

  ‘This is a large job,’ she explained. ‘Each hut needs to be carefully chronicled and examined.’

  ‘What’s to examine?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘When the camp was closed, some of the prisoners left personal possessions behind. We also discovered some fascinating material in one of the offices. That took us several weeks to examine and record. We would not have moved onto a detailed examination of this hut for several weeks.’

  ‘So the stuff was put here sometime in the past three months,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘Not necessarily, guv,’ said Ross. ‘Could have been much longer. The archaeologists could simply have missed it when they first came in here. We only found it because we were looking for things out of the ordinary, remember.’

  He paused but could resist the temptation no longer.

  ‘As they say,’ he said, starting to laugh, ‘police discovered a hole and are looking into it.’

  ‘Your scriptwriter is worse than his,’ said Blizzard, gesturing to the grinning Colley.

  ‘Sorry, guv,’ said Ross.

  ‘So,’ said the chief inspector, allowing the detectives time to enjoy the joke but suddenly serious when he noticed that neither Hamer or Roberts were laughing, ‘we have no idea at all when these things were placed there?’

  ‘Not at this stage,’ said Ross, covering up his smile.

  ‘We’ll be able to narrow it down when we get the stuff back to the lab. Just a pity the archaeologists cannot be more precise.’

  ‘We have been working as fast as we can,’ said Elspeth. ‘It’s not our fault.’

  ‘It really isn’t,’ said Hamer, also bridling at the comment.

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t be so bloody defensive!’ exclaimed Blizzard. ‘I just need to get some answers! I am not blaming anyone. Yet.’

  ‘Elspeth is just saying,’ replied Hamer, slightly mollified. ‘That we are working in difficult circumstances.’

  ‘We have to, given the situation,’ added Roberts.

  ‘You mean us?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘Now who’s being defensive?’ said Hamer.

  Blizzard glared at him.

  ‘Your presence does not exactly help, Chief Inspector,’ said Roberts, speaking quickly to head off further confrontation, ‘but no, actually, I meant Mr Ramage. He has been most insistent right from the moment the housing plan was put back on the table that we finish as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Has he now?’ said the chief inspector. ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘He said the terms of his agreement with the house-builders included a clause that construction work would start in early October or else they had the right to withdraw and he would have to repay the money they paid for the land. Our presence has already delayed that by several.’

  ‘He won’t like that,’ grunted Blizzard.

  ‘Indeed not,’ said Hamer. ‘Not surprisingly, the housebuilders are beginning to ask him somewhat pointed questions and our presence here has angered him more and more, I fear. There have been several angry exchanges with him. Goodness knows what he thinks about you.’

  ‘If you want to find out more…’ Roberts’ voice tailed off and she looked at the floor.

  ‘Go on,’ said Blizzard, eying her keenly.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Mrs Roberts,’ said the chief inspector with an edge in his voice, ‘I am sure I do not have to remind you that this is a murder investigation.’

  ‘She told me not to say anything,’ said Roberts, looking at him unhappily.

  ‘Precisely the reason why you should tell us,’ said Blizzard. ‘And who, pray, is she?’

  ‘Moira Savage.’

  ‘The chair of the parish council?’

  Roberts nodded uncomfortably.

  ‘Where does she fit into this?’ asked the chief inspector.

  ‘We have been working together on some research.’

  ‘What kind of research?’

  ‘To do with the camp.’

  ‘What to do with the camp?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘I am saying nothing more,’ said Elspeth Roberts. ‘Just ask Moira about Henderson Ramage.’

  ‘We will. Have you found out anything about our Herr Knoefler?’

  ‘Very little,’ said Roberts, fishing a scrap of paper out of her anorak pocket. ‘In fact, it is very strange.’

  ‘Strange?’

  ‘Yes. With most soldiers you can normally trace their war records pretty accurately. For instance, we know that Helmut Haller, the man lying next to him in the grave, joined the Army in 1941. We know he was decorated twice and captured in 1943. We even know that he had, at some point, been wounded by a bullet in the shoulder.’

  ‘There is a fracture on the skeleton,’ said Ross. ‘Reynolds confirmed it was a bullet wound.’

  ‘And the man on the other side,’ continued Robert. ‘A Peter Schellinger, was from Dusseldorf. He signed up to a tank regiment in 1942 and was captured in 1943.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ asked Colley.

  ‘They’re both mentioned in the material we found in the camp office, which matches with papers we found in the reference library.’

  ‘But nothing like that on Knoefler?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Roberts, a perplexed expression on her face as she handed the chief inspector the piece of paper, a photocopy of a handwritten camp record. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Blizzard screwed up his eyes as he tried to decipher the handwritten scrawl snaking its way across the page.

  ‘You’re not wrong,’ he commented after a few moments. ‘It does seem somewhat sparse.’

  ‘It’s all we have,’ said Roberts. ‘Not that it is of much use, as you can see. It states when he arrived at the camp – mid-1943 – and when he left, but nothing more. No personal information. Not even a home address in Germany. And we have been unable to find out anything about where he spent the war or even which unit he served with. I don’t understand it – it is as if Horst Knoefler never existed before he came to Hafton.’

  ‘Perhaps, Mrs Roberts,’ said Blizzard as he walked out of the hut into the crisp afternoon air, ‘he didn’t.’

  Chapter eight

  The chill in the streets of Hawkwith village late that afternoon was nothing compared to the ice forming in Moira Savage’s front room as she sat on the sofa, surveying Blizzard and his sergeant with the kind of expression she might normally reserve for something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of her shoe. In Blizzard’s jaundiced view, she typified the village perfectly.

  Her home, the imposing White House, set back from the green behind a high fence and with ivy creeping across its walls, smacked of wealth. Blizzard and Colley had arrived at the house as dusk was falling, ringing the bell and waiting for almost a minute for an answer. They shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another in the chilly porch, as if they were being deliberately forced to wait. Eventually, Moira Savage opened the door and eyed them suspiciously, demanding to see their identification and reading every word written on the warrant cards with minute and deliberate interest as she peered above the rim of her metal-framed spectacles.

  Then, reluctantly and with a pained sigh, she ushered them into the house, insisting that they take off their shoes at the front door and leading them into a large living room, carpeted in cream and lined with classy ornaments and expensive original paintings. Attempts at small-talk having failed, and the
parish council chairwoman having not even offered them a cup of tea, they all sat in silence, the officers perched uncomfortably on the edge of the cream sofa, terrified lest they mark it in some way.

  ‘So, are you going to answer the question?’ said Blizzard.

  Quite what this pillar of the community was concealing intrigued him. Moira Savage was a well-known and much-respected figure in rural circles, not just chair of Hawkwith Parish Council but a major mover in W.I and W.R.V.S circles and, if some were to be believed, a certainty for the Honours List before long. Having constructed a fearsome reputation for not suffering fools gladly, if at all, she was now giving the very clear impression that the detectives’ presence was an unnecessary and unwanted intrusion.

  ‘I will not answer your question unless you tell me who suggested you come here,’ said Moira in her cultured voice, the tone overtly hostile as she fixed the detectives with that icy stare again.

  Here was a woman who was not going to be intimidated by a couple of police officers, thought Blizzard. He smiled slightly, it was just the kind of challenge he relished, particularly given his innate dislike of the blue rinse brigade and his equally strong distaste for pushy women, a viewpoint that had led to the chief inspector being accused of misogyny on more than a few occasions by frustrated female colleagues, particularly in the HR department at headquarters. But, as Blizzard was at pains to stress to the long-suffering Ronald whenever the complaints arrived, that was a HR thing, not a woman thing.

  ‘I told you,’ said Blizzard, ‘we do not divulge the names of…’

  ‘I imagine it was that Harry Porter. He’s just the kind of busybody that would do that.’

  ‘Please, Mrs Savage.’

  ‘Or that Betsy Palmer. Oh, yes…’ The laugh was dry and bitter. ‘She would just love to see me dragged off in irons to the police station. Step into my grave that one would.’