The Final Curtain

by Priscilla Masters

  She mucked in. That was what they said about her. Then, quite suddenly, she saw the funny side and chuckled. The party, the celebration and now the let-down.

  Using Korpanski’s instructions she left the main road and turned down muddy single track lanes, grass sprouting up the middle. Luckily she met very little traffic – two cars and three tractors. The farmers could ride on the frozen earth and complete their winter chore of muck-spreading the frozen fields. As she took in the pale fields bordered by drystone walls, the far-off peaks iced with snow and white ink blots on the grass where the sun had failed to melt it, she found herself contrasting the scene with the Disney-bright paddy fields, lush scenery and scorched sand of Sri Lanka. This was home. It energized her. She opened her car window a fraction to feel the icy blast on her cheek and drew the cold air deep into her lungs. It felt good to be alive. It might be chilly here but she had always preferred the winter in the moorlands when the holidaymakers stayed at home, leaving the countryside to its hardy natives.

  Although her spirits had been dampened both by Korpanski’s news of Colclough’s replacement and the futility of this mission, she could still feel the warmth of the Sri Lankan sun and the thrill of diving on to the reef with Matthew to see the myriads of brilliantly coloured fish which swam through her splayed-out fingers. For a second she almost wished she was back there. And then she truly looked around and reflected: she was lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the country, lucky to work in a job which absorbed her and lucky to be married to a man she loved and who loved her. ‘So, Piercy,’ she scolded, ‘stop whingeing, get this irritating part of the day over and done with and get back to the office.’ She glanced at her satnav. Korpanski was right. It didn’t even recognize there was a road here. On the tiny screen it looked as though she was traversing a green field. So instead she carried on, following Korpanski’s written instructions, and swung left along a stony track, again with feathers of grass sprouting up its middle. She drove gingerly, the car skating across a couple of frozen puddles. She knew she was on the right track when, after a few hundred yards or so, she spotted a plume of smoke drifting out of a chimney far below. She stopped the car for a moment and stared down at the farm with admiration for its symmetry and beauty, but also with a policeman’s eyes. It might be in its own private valley, nestling into a tiny hamlet, but this meant it was overlooked from the road. Its position actually meant that rather than being private and secluded it was exposed and vulnerable. It would also be a difficult place to escape from. One road in; the same road out. Steep. In snow this house could easily become a prison rather than a haven. It was beautiful – an unspoilt mellow stone farmhouse, long and low. It had a slate roof which gleamed like old pewter in the wintry sun; its walls were of soft grey limestone which was mined locally, common to properties in this area, and allowed even under the strict Peak District National Park restrictions. The house looked in good condition, well cared for – immaculate, in fact – with none of the tumbledown barns and muddy areas which marked most of the local properties. It was built in an L shape, angled towards the road. Beyond the gate it had a gravelled drive with a small roundabout at its front which was grassed over and raised, bounded by a low stone wall. In the centre of the roundabout was a well. Not the bijou, twee, suburban garden centre wishing well but what looked like a genuine working well, large and complete with a pitched slate roof, turning handle and bucket. At the side of the house was a huge oak tree, winter-naked now but in spring, summer and autumn it would make this place look even more fantastic. A countryside dream. But Joanna was only too well aware that while it would be a dream in dappled sunshine and daylight, when animals populated the fields and the countryside would seem the ideal place to be, it would be a nightmare through the long winter nights, with no one within shouting – or screaming – distance. The isolation could send someone mad unless they were well adapted to it. Was this what had happened here? Was Mrs Weeks slowly losing her mind, feeling more and more trapped by the remoteness of her home? Added to the location the single-track road in – and out – was steep and stone rough. Even with a four-wheel-drive it would be a challenge to escape, particularly in bad weather. Joanna assessed the incline of the drive with a cyclist’s eyes and felt a tightening of her calf muscles. It was easily a one in four. How quickly the Garden of Eden can turn into a prison. It would only take a few centimetres of snow or a heavy fall of rain to wash the stones towards the house. As Joanna studied the property she felt the first stirrings of curiosity about the woman who lived here. If she was so nervous and paranoid why did she live here alone? Was she a farmer or smallholder? There was no sign of any animals and the tidiness of the property seemed to contradict that theory. Was she then perhaps a local who had lived all her life in the moorlands and would feel claustrophobic in the town? If this was her profile why had she lived here happily for ten years only to suddenly develop this nervousness and delusion of a stalker? Moorlands folk tended to be prosaic rather than histrionic. They needed to be to be able to survive both physically and mentally.

  As she descended into the valley Joanna searched for clues about the owner of Butterfield Farm but found none. The grounds were neat, the gravel freshly raked and free of leaves or debris. Either this was a very energetic sixty-year-old or she had help. And that meant wealth, which didn’t come from farming in this area. The moorlands farmers, in general, scratched the poor land and hostile conditions for a living. This was a large and valuable property. She must have made a good living as an actress. Even without a generous acreage, Joanna estimated it would fetch close to a million. But, looking around, if Mrs Weeks did own most of the surrounding land, and probably the entire valley, the property value would be bumped up to nearer two million. This was not the sort of set-up she had expected. It looked too organized, too sane. So, she asked herself, if the call-outs weren’t histrionic, the result of an overactive imagination, what were they? They sounded bizarre, but what if they weren’t?

  Before she had arrived she had assumed that this would be a futile visit. Now? Well, she wasn’t so sure. The answer would become clear when she met the woman herself.

  Joanna continued gingerly down the track, still asking questions. According to Mike, the call-outs had started in the New Year. Had anything specific happened to trigger paranoia and panic then? Was there anyone in Mrs Weeks’ past who might want to frighten her into abandoning the moorlands? Did a neighbour want her land or her house? Or was her initial instinct correct, and Mrs Weeks was deluded, paranoid?

  But as the car crunched over the stones and drew nearer to the house, something else bothered her. Anyone who turned in from the road would have a bird’s-eye view of the property and its surrounds. And a hundred yards or so back she had noticed a public footpath sign. Here, on the edge of the Peak District, in the Staffordshire moorlands, the footpaths were well used for much of the year. Which meant that although Butterfield Farm was remote, plenty of ramblers would notice it. Underlying Joanna’s sense of unease was its isolation and vulnerability, added to the owner’s circumstances. If anyone did want to intimidate her there would be no one to come to her aid. There was no good neighbour. She would, in the end, have to rely on the police.

  Joanna revised her approach. Normally in cases like this, once the police had decided there was no real threat, they reassured the occupants, quoting low crime statistics as fluently as a politician. Next they would give practical advice, sometimes to update door and window locks, sometimes to secure outbuildings and occasionally to link their burglar alarms to the police station. But here there was still a problem. It would be no use linking Butterfield Farm to the police station. Timony Weeks would continue calling them out on a daily basis, wasting hours of their time. And if there was an emergency it would take the police at least half an hour to reach her. There wasn’t a police helicopter for miles. It would have to come from Manchester or Wolverhampton. If there really was a serious problem Timony Weeks would be on her own for some considerabl
e time.

  Joanna stopped to open the gate which bore an oval sign, Butterfield Farm, gaily painted with a couple of swallows wheeling around in a sapphire sky, and underneath it a second sign, Beware of the Bull. It was an obvious fable – there wasn’t an animal in sight – but at least it was a change from Beware of the Dog. Or, as Joanna had read worryingly outside one house, Beware of the Cat!

  With good countryside manners she closed the gate behind her and descended gingerly down the track, avoiding skidding on the icy patches and pulling up outside.

  There were two cars parked side by side, a blue Isuzu and a black Qashqai, with garaging room for plenty more. She noted four garage doors, a couple converted from barns, judging by the arches in the brickwork. So Mrs Weeks was not a farmer. Farmers had too many uses for barns to convert them into garages. Close up, the condition of the farm impressed her even more and reinforced her initial instinct that this was the property of either a very wealthy or a very industrious lady. Possibly both. Maybe it was her wealth that was feeding her paranoia. Rich people often suspected someone was about to come along and relieve them of their money and/or possessions. Perhaps this was the simple explanation of the calls to the police. Timony Weeks had so much to steal that she expected someone to rob her. As Joanna wondered she realized something else. Today was as bright and clear as a winter’s day can be. There was no pollution in the moorlands. The air was crystal glass, practically ringing in its clarity. The sky was a sheet of perfect azure. The purity in the air comes only in winter, when dust and pollens are absent and the atmosphere is holding its breath, waiting for spring to breathe again. But however bright the day, the house itself was in the shade, which made it appear colder and darker than its surrounds. It had been built to peer out on the dark side, facing north-east, which gave the farm a forbidding and unwelcoming look. Joanna looked around her and worked out why. The house had been built with its long angle watching the approach. She climbed out of the squad car, conscious that she was treading in the footsteps of almost the entire Leek police force, including Detective Sergeant Mike Korpanski. Picturing Korpanski’s size elevens beating a march to the front door, she finally chuckled to herself. It was her turn to meet the old bat.

  As soon as Joanna had left the warmth of the car she felt the raw chill bite her face. It was always a few degrees colder out here than in Leek town centre. Snow could lie in the moorlands for weeks after it had melted on St Edward’s Street. These lands not only had their own geography but also their own eco-climate. Global warming seemed a million miles – or more literally, a million years – from here. But the strange thing was that it was even colder down here, in the valley, than it had been up on the ridge. Unusual again. Normally people got blasted away by the cold, the wind and frequently the rain, when they were on the top. Valleys were, in general, where you found shelter – and homesteads. This was where the farmers would traditionally build, facing south to scoop up every ounce of warmth, light and sunshine. But not Butterfield Farm. It had patently been reconstructed in recent years, probably by its current owner. It faced the wrong direction and, besides, this valley was boggy. Joanna had noticed rushes sprouting in the surrounding fields, testifying to a high water level. If she was building a house with unlimited funds she would love Butterfield for its situation but she would have drained the valley and angled the house to face south.

  Had this simply been designed by someone who did not understand how to make a house suit the land, or had it deliberately been rebuilt at this angle to face the track and keep watch for a lone traveller coming down the road? She stood and studied the farm. Now she understood she realized something else: every window watched her. Then another thought: was she being infected by paranoia too? Joanna wrapped her coat around her, tightened her belt and strode towards the front door. She hunted for either a bell or a knocker, found neither and thumped. As she had suspected from her distant view, Butterfield was a new build, probably rebuilt on the site of an ancient cottage with barns. That was the only way that you could get planning permission out here. So everything, the angle of the house, the watch over the approach and the fact that travellers could not ring or use a knocker, must have been decided by the owner, together with the architect. Why no bell or door knocker?

  Had there never been either or had they been removed? Was the intention to positively discourage strangers from calling in to Butterfield Farm? If so, why?

  She only had a minute to reflect before the door was pulled opened by a tall, muscular woman with straggly, greying hair and piercing eyes. She was somewhere in her late sixties, and was wearing baggy dark trousers and a cream polo neck sweater, the sleeves pushed up to display powerful, freckled forearms. She eyed Joanna with suspicion and some hostility.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mrs Weeks?’ Joanna asked dubiously. This did not look like the eccentric old bat she’d been imagining on her drive out. Or a retired actress, for that matter.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ the woman said flatly. ‘She’s inside. I’m Diana Tong, her secretary-cum-cleaner-cum-general-dogsbody.’

  Joanna felt like retorting that she was also a dogsbody, answering a crappy summons made by a cracked old woman as a ‘servant of the public’, but she resisted. If the new superintendent was as humourless as Korpanski had warned she’d better be careful. In future there would be no Colclough to make excuses for her, indulge her and haul her out of scrapes. She could not afford to be the teeniest millimetre out of line. And so she gave the woman a bland smile and introduced herself, resisting any sarcasm. At the same time she flashed her ID card and followed Diana Tong inside.

  Again, inside Butterfield was tasteful. They had stepped straight into a kitchen, fitted out in yellowed pine with grey granite tops, an island in the centre and gleaming copper pans hanging from steel hooks. The floor was terracotta tiled, the walls painted a buttery cream. A red Aga stood at one end. The image of a farmhouse kitchen was completed with dark beams criss-crossing a white ceiling. Joanna looked around in admiration. Most women would kill for this kitchen. In fact, she would – well, not literally but … Impervious to her admiration, Diana Tong marched straight ahead, Joanna trailing in her wake. They passed through three rooms. Butterfield was a long, low house, one room deep, each room leading into another. They all had low-beamed ceilings and cream-washed walls. The doors were period oak, with thumb latches, and there were plenty of tasteful pieces of antique furniture, oak, mahogany and some walnut, all looking authentic and valuable. Chinese porcelain and Staffordshire figures sparsely distributed gave the rooms an air of quiet, dignified elegance. The walls were dressed with a few pictures that looked like original oils – a couple of portraits of people in period dress and some landscapes with sheep or cows. Lamps illuminated the darker corners with soft warmth and the ambience of shabby chic was completed by Persian silk carpets carelessly thrown around. But Joanna noticed that every single window faced north-east, watching the approach. Each time they moved to another room she was aware of the empty grey lane. Like a castle it guarded its entrance, as though expecting an assault. Beyond the lane were the pale peaks of the moorlands, today capped with snow. The entire place was like a feature in Period Homes and further evidence of being out of sync with the vision she had drawn up of a scatty, eccentric sixty-year-old who kept calling out the police in a panic because of strange, almost supernatural events. Joanna had to completely hold back on that assumption. This place was organized and controlled, and none of this was making any sense. Her toes tingled a little as she kept up with the broad back and brisk step of the very businesslike Diana Tong, who finally turned back to say, ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ She flung her arms out wide. ‘This is what money can buy, Inspector Piercy.’ Her tone was resentful, her thick eyebrows meeting in the middle in a deep, angry scowl.

  Joanna couldn’t think of a suitable rejoinder so she simply nodded and walked behind the ‘general dogsbody’ into a final smaller room at the end of the house. As they entered a Burmese cat exi
ted snottily past them, tail erect and twitching, as though she was too posh to remain in the room with a mere policewoman. Joanna lifted her eyebrows.

  A tiny, bony woman was sitting at a desk, absorbed in a computer screen. She looked up and Joanna’s confusion deepened. She looked nothing like the dotty old bat she’d imagined, but a calm woman in her forties, physically no bigger than a child. She was dressed in loose white cotton pyjama pants and a blue silk wrap, something like a smoking dressing gown Noël Coward might have worn. Joanna stared. That was way back in the 1930s. All the same, the woman who was sitting across the room was only missing a long, slim cigarette holder to be cast in a starring role in Blithe Spirit. It made the up-to-date computer that she was working on look slightly anachronistic, as though someone in a Jane Austen novel was chatting on a mobile phone.

  Again, like the atmosphere from the outside, Joanna had an odd sensation that something here was not adding up.

  She cleared her throat and wondered how to begin this. She wanted Timony Weeks to stop this repeated wasting of police time by calling out of police for what appeared to be ‘minor incidents’ or calling in response to her ‘senses’. On the other hand, she owed the woman the benefit of the doubt.