by Harper Fox
“Yes, Mother, but—”
“But nothing, Ezekiel, ever again. Do you see how your brother and your brother-in-law watch out for each other, even though Gideon has been working all night, and they both are plainly sick with exhaustion and grief?”
Gideon wondered if he’d curled up in a corner of the cornfield and accidentally fallen asleep. His mother, in comparison to poor Zeke—reddening under the onslaught—looked fresh as a daisy, and full of business. “You’re a tremendous ally, Ma,” he said. “But Zeke didn’t say anything to the contrary. And although we’re pleased to see you...”
“It’s six in the morning, and you want to know why we’re here.” Zeke flashed Gideon a grateful look. “I went to see Mother last night, to tell her what had happened before she heard it from anyone else. And it seems she had an... inspiration of some sort in the night, and I’m afraid she wouldn’t rest until she’d phoned me and persuaded me to drive her out here to see you. Still, we wouldn’t have come if we’d known...”
This was going to be interesting. “Can I ask what you do know?”
“Well, that there’s been a murder. One of your local farmers.”
“And is that because Mystic Meg grilling sausages over there told you, or—”
“No. I’m afraid some of your neighbours were already out on the streets when we arrived, despite the early hour. They were rather agitated, and deeply embroiled in gossip.”
“I swear, one day I’m gonna swing for Darren Prowse.”
“Is it a problem? Is there anything we can do?”
Gideon released a sigh. “No. Everything’s under control up there. Darren found the body, and I got the Truro and Bodmin lads over straight away. The scene’s secure. They just sent me off to shave and have a shower, because...”
“Because the poor sod’s on duty in an hour.” Lee placed an aromatic plate of sausages, toast and tomatoes in front of Gideon, his usual ladies-first courtesy overruled by the impulse to feed his weary husband. “Isn’t that right?”
“Oh, surely not,” Ma Frayne protested. “Hasn’t he been on duty all night?”
“Not officially, Ma.” Gideon flickered her a reassuring smile. “Got to put on my uniform and tour the streets of Dark like an old-fashioned beat bobby. My constable took one look at the bits of poor John Bowe and decided she didn’t want to be a copper anymore.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I’m not so sure. The forensics assistant fainted, and he’s been on the job for years. She’ll be okay. Just needs a bit of time off.”
“But what about you, Gideon?”
“Oh, I’ve got my other half to protect and serve me.” Gideon caught Lee’s hand in passing, pulled him gently down to sit next to him. “Where’s your breakfast?”
“I’m okay. Not much of an appetite this morning.”
“Share mine. Please.” Gideon speared a piece of tomato, and was about to pop it into Lee’s mouth on the fork before deciding the spectacle might be too much for his ma. He loved her advocacy, but poor Zeke was getting his arse kicked for the perceived lack of it, a punishment he these days scarcely deserved. In his stiff-necked way, he’d become a good friend to their relationship, and this morning looked as bereaved as anyone could wish. Gideon let Lee take the fork for himself. “So, Ma, I’ve got to know. What’s the big idea?”
“Ezekiel and I will follow Elowen to France. He’s a church minister, and I’m Tamsyn Elizabeth’s grandmother. I’m sure she won’t refuse to see us.”
She was fragile today, underneath her valiant uniform of cashmere and pearls. Gideon wondered if she’d spent a sleepless night hatching her plans. “I’m sure she won’t. But what are you going to do then?”
“Well, in some of the police dramas I like to watch—you’ll know about this, son—they sometimes do a thing called good cop, bad cop. Ezekiel will take a very stern approach with Elowen, and tell her that because Tamsyn lived alone with you and Lee for five months, that established a precedent—you know, like when you have a job but no contract, the employer still has certain duties to you.”
“Is there any such law?” Lee asked, ignoring Gideon’s second quarter of tomato. His face had gained a faint wistfulness during the old lady’s speech. “Gid?”
“Not that I know of, but...”
“But that’s just the beginning,” she went on. “If we can make her just a little bit afraid—nothing dreadful, Lee, just Ezekiel pretending to be the bad cop—then I can tell her how much it’s breaking my heart to lose my granddaughter. That I’m a poor old lady who doesn’t know how much time she has left. Which is a great exaggeration, of course, but, you see, at this point...”
She pulled out a handkerchief. The exaggeration wasn’t a very great one, now she’d heard herself say it. “At this point you’re being the good cop,” Gideon finished for her gently. “Yes, I see.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“Does Ezekiel mind doing his part?” Gideon looked up and found his brother’s eyes already on him, saying more clearly than words, Gid, if you’d just spent the night with her I have, you’d agree to anything. “Okay. I’m probably just tired, but this doesn’t sound as crazy to me as it should. Lee, what do you reckon?”
“No.”
All three Fraynes turned to him in surprise. His hands were clenched together on the table. He had taken on what Gideon had come to think of as his winter-sea look—silvery and distant. It was often the sign of an oncoming vision. Gideon took hold of his wrist. “Are you all right?”
“Fine. Just... no.”
Ezekiel shifted uncomfortably. “Look, Lee, I know she’s your sister. And I don’t think we’ll be able to manage it exactly as my mother says, but it has to be worth a try. I’m willing to, anyway—”
Lee shoved his chair back. He banged down one palm among the breakfast dishes, the sharp gesture so unlikely from him that everyone started back, and Isolde gave a frightened yelp from her basket. “I said no. It isn’t the right thing to do. Isn’t it enough that I’ve spoken?”
Gideon got up to follow him out of the room. “Oh, Gideon,” his mother wailed, clutching at his sleeve. “Do try to persuade him! I thought it such a good idea.”
“Sorry, Ma. If he’s this set against it—yeah, it is enough that he’s spoken.”
“Don’t you get a say?”
Gideon wheeled back to face his brother. A hot snake of pain was rising in his throat, devouring justice and sense. “Don’t you dare try to drive a wedge in there, Zeke. Don’t you dare.”
“Oh, Gideon, he isn’t! I know he hasn’t been good to you in the past, but—”
“Mother! Please stop apologising for me. I’ve done my best to make amends to Gideon and Lee for the way I expressed my convictions, but...”
This was all going downhill fast. Gideon took his mother’s hand—reached out and awkwardly grasped Zeke’s shoulder. “Sorry. Sorry, okay? He’s a mess this morning, and so am I. I have to go after him.”
He found Lee in the nursery, huddled up in the armchair where he and Gideon had taken turns to bottle-feed Tamsyn. Gideon knelt in front of him. He set aside the little girl’s favourite blanket, as if that would make any difference in this bombed-out city of memories. “Oh, sweetheart.”
Lee took fierce hold of him. He pressed their brows together. “I was rude to your mum. I love her, and... I was rude to her.”
“I love her too, but she rucked up here at half six in the morning on the day after we lost our kid. She can expect to feel the edge of our temper.” Gideon kissed him, let his eyes close in the sunlight streaming through the window. “And quite a temper it is—get you, all sexy and assertive, putting your foot down. I think Zeke thinks you’re oppressing me.”
“Ugh. There was nothing sexy about that. I just miss Tamsyn, Gid. I miss her.”
“I know. It feels like a hook in the gut. Is there no way you’d let Zeke and Ma try out their crazy plan?”
“I can’t. It’s a wrong thing to do
, and not because I’m frightened of upsetting my bloody sister. I can’t explain it—not to them, not to you.”
One hook at a time was enough. Gideon let him off this one in silence, rocking him. When his death-grip eased and his breathing quieted, he said, “All right. Look, are you okay? I really do have to go back to work.”
“I know. I have to go with you.”
Gideon sat back. “Oh, no. Not this time, sunbeam. This is a bad one. And all I’m gonna do is go back up to the field to see if they need me for anything more there, and then I think I’d better call a meeting at the village hall, see if I can talk everyone out of whatever panic Darren Prowse is trying to start.”
“The thing is, I’ve been invited.”
“What? Please don’t tell me John Bowe’s disembodied soul is summoning you to—”
“No, no. I just had a phone call this morning, even earlier than our early-bird visitors. It was your HQ at Truro. They want me to go and have a look at the scene once it’s been cleared up, see if I can get any read on what’s happened.”
“Wow. Don’t they usually wait until I’m bewildered and desperate before they call in the psychic?”
“Nothing to do with you, Robocop.” Lee brushed a kiss to Gideon’s mouth, just a moth-wing touch but enough to make him want to sling Zeke and Ma out of the house and slam the door. “Apparently they’ve hired an officer whose special remit is to look into cases with any kind of... well, I forget what they called it, but anything out of the usual run of things. Folklore connections, Pagan, paranormal, that kind of thing.”
“Ah. The weird shit.”
“That’s it. And this weird-shit sergeant reckons a ritual slaying in a cornfield on the eve of harvest festival might just be the making of his career, so I’ve been drafted.”
“Wait up. Who said anything about a ritual?”
“He did. So you can see what kind of kook we’ve got on our hands. Looks like I’ll be putting out fires, too... All of which is far less important than the fact that I upset Ma Frayne. Better let go of me, gorgeous—I’ve got to go make things right.”
“No, Lee, dear.” Ma Frayne came tentatively through the nursery door. “It’s for me to make this right. I wonder if you can understand—I was married for fifty years to a man who would have said that something like this was God’s will. But now he’s gone, and I’ve come to know what a load of...” She hesitated, and Gideon held his breath: not bollocks, surely, not from the cashmere and pearls. “What an error that is, I feel obliged to try and fix things, whether God likes it or not. With the result that I’ve become a most interfering old woman.”
Lee held out a hand to her. She wobbled over and took it, subsiding onto the edge of the cot. “You’re not,” Lee said. “You’re a perfectly normal grandma. Look, Gid and I are just shell-shocked. Can you give us a couple of days to think about what we should do?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Is Zeke all right?”
“I’ve tired him out. He’s gone into the garden with Isolde.”
Gideon glanced through the window. He’d made serious efforts with the little moorland garden so that Tamsyn would have flowers to marvel at, a pond, a swing. Zeke had taken up an unlikely perch on the wooden board hanging from the hawthorn tree. Isolde was sitting on his feet, her big mournful head laid in his lap. “Jeez, what a screw-up,” Gideon breathed. “Right. I’m going out to try and make things right with him, and then all of us—you included, Lee—are going to sit back down and finish our breakfast.”
***
The officers stationed at Carnysen field were more used to crowd control after football matches and at Golowan when the fire-dances got out of hand. To his dismay, Gideon encountered the first of them frog-marching old Mrs Waite down the lane. “Michael,” he called, recognising the young constable. “What’s going on here? That’s our village shopkeeper.”
“So she tells me, Sergeant Frayne, but she kept trying to get under the tape. We can’t seem to make any of them understand...” He paused at the sound of further ruckus beyond the stile. “That this is a crime scene. Soon as we chase one of them away, half a dozen of the others are trying to climb the fence.”
“Gideon!” Mrs Waite gave an improbable wriggle and escaped the constable’s grasp. She shot to Gideon’s side. “I’m trying to tell him, I have to be in there. I’m godmother to young Dev Bowe, and he’s in there, crying and sobbing over John—what’s left of him, God rest him—with no-one to comfort him.”
“That’s the problem, Sergeant! We try to keep ’em out, but they’ve all got reasons for being in.”
“That’s because they all know each other,” Gideon said, dusting Mrs Waite off and straightening the straw bonnet she’d assumed for her mercy mission. “Now, you listen to me, Elsie. It’s terrible to hear Dev crying, but there will be somebody on the scene to help him, somebody professional. Michael, tell me there’s a counsellor in there.”
“There is, but he can’t get started because of all the fuss.”
“You hear that? You’re hindering the police, Elsie. Obstructing the course of justice. The penalties for that are heavy, and what would Dark do for its groceries if you’re in the nick?”
“Oh, Gideon.” She gave him a painful jab in the ribs. “You’re such a joker.”
“Am I? You try me and see. Someone will look after Dev, I promise. Now go home.” He watched her bustle off down the track, then turned back to the constable. “Right. Next?”
Next were the Prowses, of course, Darren and Bill and a handful of ne’er-do-well cousins from Bodmin. They were variously engaged in harassing the officers trying to guard the stile, and ducking over and under the uniformed arms to snap photos with their mobiles, no doubt for a quick sale to the local gutter press. Gideon, freshly showered and uniformed himself—heartbreak on temporary hold—waded in. He jumped onto the stile, straightened his cap and made a quick assessment. “Right, you lot,” he called, and the various well-known faces, Prowse and Kemp and Priddy, turned like odd flowers to a familiar sun. “What do you mean by crowding around here and making a nuisance of yourselves? A man’s lying dead in that field.”
Jack Wilson stopped his efforts to break through the hedge. He was one of Dark’s more sober citizens, his presence here an indicator of general emotional pressure. “We know that, Constable,” he said, and Gideon as usual ignored the slip: he’d been their constable for so many long years before his promotion. “It’s John Bowe, and something appalling’s happened to him. Why isn’t anyone telling us what’s going on?”
“Because nobody knows yet, Jack. Simple as that.”
“The Prowse kid says he was dismembered. That some kind of beast tore him apart.”
Nothing worse than half a story, unless it was half a limb. Gideon thought he could see one now. He gestured to the plain-clothes officer frowning over the coroner’s shoulder. “Detective Inspector Lawrence? Could I have a word?”
Lawrence had worked with him on the Lorna Kemp case. She gave Gideon a look that suggested he had cornered the market in weirdness, and made her way gingerly out through the corn. “Morning, Sergeant. I gather you had the pleasure of finding Mr Bowe.”
“It was one of our village lads, actually. He’s a bit shy, and...” Sharply he gestured Darren away from a shiny digital tape-measure someone had foolishly left untended at the edge of the field. “Well, it might be best if I interviewed him. Would that be all right?”
“Please. Knock yourself out.” She glanced around impatiently at the crowd. “Always nice to get a good turn-out, but this is ridiculous.”
“Popular neighbour, ma’am, and this is the start of the harvest. A lot of people expecting to start work in the Bowes’ fields today.”
“I don’t see why they shouldn’t. Not this one, obviously, although we’re about to get the wagon in here and clear up. Can you help us with the audience?”
“I’ll be glad to take them off your hands. Anything I can tell them yet?”
“I’m afraid not, but try and nix any bloody stories about the Bodmin Beast. We had more than enough of that last time around.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I suppose you already know that Sergeant Pendower, our esoteric-crimes consultant, is coming up to meet your other half later.”
“Esoteric crimes, ma’am?”
Her expression became weary, and Gideon wondered how much she’d already had to put up with from Sergeant Pendower. “Someone in Truro has decided—and I have to say, this is partly your doing, Frayne, what with the Lorna Kemp case and then that business in Falmouth—that what this county needs is an expert in paganism, folklore and the wheel of the ritual year. I don’t suppose you asked for one at our last general consultation, did you?”
“No, ma’am. I asked for an expert in drug abuse and the effects of unemployment.”
“Right. Well, Sergeant Pendower is what we have. Please cooperate, but bear in mind that his work—and Lee’s, if he chooses to help us out—is quite separate from our main investigation.” She paused a moment, hands behind her back, the picture of British reticence in the face of strong emotion. “Nobody wants to pry, Gideon, but... bloody bad business, that, about your little girl. Everyone at Truro feels the same. If you need some time off as compassionate leave, let us know, just...”
“Just not right now, eh?”
“If you could possibly manage it, no.”
Gideon could stand here and burst into tears at this touch of awkward sympathy, or he could start chucking his weight about. There really wasn’t anything in between, so he drew a deep breath and turned to face his villagers. “Right, everyone,” he barked. “This isn’t how we act when trouble comes to Dark. We don’t hang about and get in the way of the people trying to help us. All of you have questions, and all of you will be heard, but not here—get down to the village hall, and I’ll join you there in ten minutes.”
He didn’t need to ask twice. Immediately some kind of raggedy line formed in the lane. He wondered at their cooperation, then remembered something Lee had said a long time ago—at their first meeting in Sarah Kemp’s kitchen, in fact, before they had so much as shaken hands. Gideon’s worked all his life to keep everyone safe in this village. Gideon had been at a nadir, and the words had stayed with him. He cleared his throat, lowered his voice and addressed DI Lawrence again. “Don’t suppose petty cash would run to tea and biscuits down there, ma’am?”
