Tainted Ground

by Margaret Duffy

  ‘You’re bound to be upset for a few days,’ she said consolingly when I had dried another few tears.

  ‘No, it’s just that Patrick and I always have sticky buns at the nick,’ I gulped. ‘It’s turned into a little ritual, a joke between us, really.’

  She cut it into small pieces for me as my mouth was very swollen.

  ‘If you’re going to tell me what you thought happened someone else should be here,’ Elspeth said solemnly. ‘As a witness. This is bound to end up in court.’

  ‘You won’t believe what I think happened either,’ I told her.

  ‘Try me.’

  Elspeth was helping me drink the tea as even my good hand was too shaky to hold the cup. I said, ‘Marjorie Brandon appears to be the brains behind a career in crime the pair of them have had. She hit me and dragged me into the flat by my feet where she hit me again. They have a yob helping them who might be their son called Teddy who arrived shortly afterwards.’

  ‘I know about him. Edward, she referred to him as. He works in the States and she made him sound very grand. Oh, my dear.’

  I had dissolved into tears again. My imagination did not seem to have hijacked my brain after all.

  ‘I’m going to call Patrick,’ Elspeth announced when I had been persuaded to eat something. ‘He ought to be here with you anyway.’

  Patrick arrived about twenty minutes later – he had been working at Manvers Street – and brought with him a witness in the shape of Lynn Outhwaite and a tape recorder. It was all official and Elspeth did not have to write anything down. I thought for a moment she would be asked to leave and prepared to protest but Patrick solemnly gave her permission to stay.

  There were still holes in my memory of what had happened and as I spoke I could see the doubt on their faces, especially when I said I had found the bag containing the gold, but I carried on talking, dredging up every smallest detail I could remember, for a little while longer and then asked for a short rest.

  ‘How about the locked garage?’ Patrick prompted ruthlessly, but stopping the tape. ‘Are you sure you still can’t remember that bit?’

  ‘No,’ I said, carefully sipping another cup of tea, unassisted this time.

  ‘Yet you can remember going in the unlocked one first that contained the blue car.’

  ‘I’ve just said so, haven’t it? Oh, that’s right, the alarm wasn’t set and the keys had been left in the ignition. I had an idea it might be booby-trapped in some way so I didn’t touch it.’

  ‘Whatever made you think that?’ Lynn asked incredulously.

  ‘I was trained by MI5,’ I told her. ‘It makes you twitchy.’

  When we recommenced and that new recollection had been inserted for the benefit of the tape I went on to say that I could not remember what I had done with the gold and began to relate, again in as much detail as possible, what had happened after I had rung the Brandons’ doorbell. Here open scepticism surfaced among my audience and when I spoke of how they had cooked and eaten dinner while I lay, tied up, out in the hall Lynn started to become restless. Even Elspeth looked doubtful and once again I began to doubt myself.

  ‘The Brandons are adamant that they didn’t even let you in after you’d confronted them at the door,’ Patrick said at one point.

  ‘I’m sure some of my DNA is on their carpet,’ I retorted. ‘Are they still there, by the way?’

  ‘So far as I know.’

  ‘Only they were talking of going to France until things settled down again.’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘I’m fairly sure they’re still there. But you’re ahead of yourself. This man Teddy – he’s their son?’

  ‘I only guessed he was their son, from the way Marjorie spoke to him.’ But I could not remember the exact words she had said.

  ‘I know I’m probably not supposed to say anything,’ Elspeth suddenly interposed, ‘but if Ingrid put the gold somewhere after she found it and they looked for it in the place they left it and it wasn’t there they’re not going anywhere until they’ve recovered it, are they?’

  Or got their hands on me again to make me tell them where I’d hidden it. I shuddered. Perhaps I would go home to Devon after all.

  Patrick smiled at his mother in acknowledgement of this and said to me, ‘Go on. What happened after he arrived?’

  ‘They made me phone you. Marjorie said she would kill me there and then if I did not exactly repeat the message they gave me. I felt too awful to try to resist. He had a knife.’

  ‘But you had the gun in your pocket.’

  ‘My hands and feet were tied together and they all stood in a ring around me as I sat on the floor. They undid my hands so I could phone.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I don’t know. I passed out again. I think Teddy must have hit me. He was standing nearest to me then.’

  Lynn said, ‘But why didn’t they remove the gun from your pocket, or your mobile phone? Surely both posed a risk to them. I’m ignoring the skeleton keys, by the way.’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘But you’re saying that these people are hardened criminals.’

  ‘Brandon’s attitude was that I was just the rector’s daughter-in-law playing policeman and Marjorie was far more worried about Patrick. They probably didn’t search me.’

  But there had been something else in my pocket. I said, ‘May I have another break while I try to think about something?’

  Patrick got up to stretch his legs. ‘And we haven’t even touched on why you then walked up the main road.’

  ‘You still don’t believe me, do you?’ I stormed. ‘They must have loaded me in a car, driven up there, and then, when presumably I’d come round sufficiently to be mobile, left me in the road hoping I’d get killed!’ What had been the other thing in my pocket that they could have regarded as a risk to them?

  ‘What, and risk someone else at the mill seeing them?’ Lynn scoffed.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you,’ Patrick said. ‘You were knocked unconscious more than once and that affects the mind. You get vivid mental pictures, strange dreams. I know, when I was blown up in the Falklands I dreamt that I was a boy again and walking along Plymouth Hoe having a long conversation with Dad about the birds and the bees.’

  ‘Really?’ said Elspeth. ‘What on earth did your father say?’

  ‘I don’t think I ought to tell you,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘More tea?’ Elspeth asked me, going a bit pink.

  ‘Tea and sand,’ I murmured. ‘In the garage. I took a sample. Plus a black Porsche. It’s probably Teddy’s.’

  ‘Marjorie did say he had a good job,’ Elspeth said eagerly.

  ‘A pound to a penny he’s just out of a US penitentiary,’ I said. ‘He’s too thick to have a good job.’

  Lynn was getting impatient. ‘There were a couple of sample bags in one of your pockets but they were both unused. How many did you take with you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I told her. ‘I just took some from Patrick’s briefcase. They must have removed it.’

  She was having great trouble staying polite. ‘Sorry, I simply can’t believe they’d take that – surely they wouldn’t have had a clue what was in it – and leave behind your mobile and the revolver. Sorry again, Ingrid, but I honestly think you lost your temper with Brandon – he is a rather obnoxious old man – then had an idea about something else after they’d refused you entry, phoned Patrick and then set off to wherever you were headed and got knocked down. As Patrick says, the rest is hallucinations brought on by being hit by the car.’

  ‘You’ve only got to check the garages,’ I said. ‘And find the stone I rolled back over the top of the metal spike that has the end of the rope tied to it.’

  Patrick and Lynn exchanged glances and it was the kind of look that sent humiliation rolling over me in a clammy wave. This man of mine was now a policeman, I reminded myself again. Here was another person and the magic of our previous working relationship had gone.


  Patrick brought the interview to a formal close, switched off the tape and there was a short silence.

  ‘Ingrid didn’t previously know that the Brandons had a son,’ Elspeth said defensively. ‘I never mentioned him to her until she spoke of him today.’

  ‘He might have answered the door when she got there,’ Lynn said, rising to go. ‘There’s no knowing exactly what took place and we probably never will. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve still got work to do. Shall I take the recorder with me?’ she finished by saying to Patrick.

  When it had been handed over and she had gone Elspeth said to Patrick, ‘You owe it to Ingrid to check up on some of the things she’s said. Surely it isn’t that difficult.’

  ‘I’d need a search warrant for the garages,’ Patrick said. ‘I don’t think I’d get one. You have to have really good reasons, a certain amount of evidence, before they’re issued.’

  ‘But can’t you issue one yourself? I thought you were an acting superintendent.’

  ‘I’m nevertheless a probationer and not permitted to do some things.’

  Elspeth shot to her feet and made for the door. ‘This doesn’t sound like you talking at all.’

  ‘It isn’t the same now, Elspeth,’ I said, hating that I was responsible for something coming between them. ‘He had carte blanche before.’

  She turned and snapped, ‘Well, I suppose it all boils down to priorities and how much he wants the job.’

  Patrick and I were left on our own and for several seconds neither of us spoke.

  ‘What now?’ I whispered.

  He appeared to gather his thoughts. ‘Later on they’re going to have a look at your wrist and if the swelling’s gone down it’ll be put in plaster. You’re to have more blood tests to confirm you haven’t suffered damage to your liver, spleen and things like that. If all’s well you’ll probably be home tomorrow morning.’

  Which had not been the question I had asked and well he knew it.

  By this time I was practically convinced that Lynn Outhwaite, in her blunt but well-meaning way, was right. It was a relief for it meant that I could go home, tell myself that I was made of unsuitable stuff for police work, carry on working on A Man Called Celeste and keep my nose right out of Patrick’s new career. Nothing was actually lost, I told myself, the only resentful party being a miserable old devil who objected to being harangued by demented female novelists.

  I was not resentful for, obviously, if I had been walking along the middle of the main road I deserved to be hit by a car. At this stage I was not really asking myself what I had been doing there if the Brandons had not been responsible, for if all the rest of what I had said was pie in the sky and no one was taking any notice it did not matter, did it? The only slightly worrying thing about it was that if one stuck to this theory, I had set off along the road before the car hit me and I should be able to remember, even in garbled fashion, what this fantastic lead was all about.

  At ten the next morning Patrick collected me and I managed to get to the car, slowly and carefully, under my own steam. He was quiet and I assumed that his shoulder was still hurting. We made a good pair.

  Never assume.

  ‘Well, I broke all the rules,’ he said when we were having coffee at the rectory, Elspeth and John out somewhere.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I applied for a search warrant, first to Carrick and then to Bromsgrove’s boss – Bromsgrove was all for it by the way, he seems to have taken quite a shine to you – and was turned down, flat, by both of them on the grounds of lack of evidence. Apparently Brandon’s now written to the Chief Constable. So last night I went down there anyway, had a look in the end garage, no car, broke into the third one along, no car, no sand or tea. Then I walked along the river bank behind the garages, just the same as you described. No stone, no metal spike, no rope, no sign of anything like that ever having existed there.’

  I could only gaze at him, utterly appalled. ‘But you could see where the grass was flattened where the stone had been rolled from the heap,’ I said.

  ‘It was all flattened, as though a herd of cows had got in there.’

  I gripped my hands together to try to stop them shaking.

  ‘And of course I owned up,’ Patrick went on. ‘I had to.’ He paused. ‘I’m suspended, as of an hour ago.’

  ‘I’m so terribly, terribly sorry,’ I moaned, shaking like a whole forest of leaves by now.

  He leaned over and kissed me. ‘But I’m fairly convinced that what you can remember actually happened.’

  ‘You believe me!’

  ‘It was just the way you described. The big thistle, then, farther along I could see where your foot had slipped and you’d grabbed the handful of grass and the little tree. The place where the bank had all but gone. It’s all there. You couldn’t have dreamt that up.’

  ‘I could still have gone along there and not found the gold.’

  ‘You said you’d broken two fingernails undoing the knots in the rope. Did you nibble off the broken bits and spit them out?’

  ‘Probably.’

  He produced a tiny plastic bag. ‘I didn’t bother to show this to anyone at the nick but that is the rather violent orange varnish you’ve got on now, isn’t it?’

  ‘I can’t understand how, even with a torch, you found these in the dark,’ I said, looking at the minute scraps of fingernail.

  ‘One was on the wall and I spotted the other quite by chance. They reflected the light like ladybirds, only they’re not around during the winter months.’

  ‘But you’re suspended,’ I agonized. ‘It’s all over.’

  ‘No, it’s not. I’m going to nail these people who punched you in the face and hoped to kill you. Nail them to the wall.’

  Sixteen

  After a hot bath heavily laced with some kind of ‘rural remedy’ (Hinton Littlemoor is very keen on this sort of thing), one of several items intended for emergencies that Elspeth had procured for me from somewhere, and then taking two strong painkillers with a brew of special herbal tea from the same source I found that I could at least walk and not hobble. The plaster on my arm, just to the elbow and leaving my fingers and thumb free, was lightweight and there was no longer any need for a sling. I then lay down for a while with an icepack on my face, actually a bag of frozen peas, and when I looked again my swollen mouth was definitely less puffy. Nothing could be done about the contusion on my forehead and the black eyes but I’ve always thought it a waste of good steak anyway.

  I had no idea what Patrick was doing, only aware that he had departed, driving with more speed than normal down the rectory drive. His shoulder must be better, either that or he was ignoring it.

  Thought about cold-bloodedly, what had happened was inevitable; sooner or later the pair of us would have run head-on into officialdom and the perceived correct way of doing things. It was just as well, perhaps, that it had happened now. That is what probation periods are all about, I told myself. We would just have to write off the whole episode as experience: it was not as though Patrick had badgered the police to let him in.

  Quite shortly afterwards he returned. ‘We’re leaving,’ he said, finding me in the living room. ‘Please start packing – I’ll help you in a minute.’

  He disappeared and I made my way out into the hall and surveyed the flight of stairs down which I had laboriously journeyed some two minutes earlier. Perhaps if I went up backwards on my bottom … No, that was badly bruised too. I was still standing there, working out tactics, when a whirlwind arrived and I was borne aloft in a fireman’s lift, this, I assumed, on account of the temporary weakness of one of his arms.

  ‘You weigh a bit more than you did on our wedding day,’ he said, tipping me down, but reasonably gently, on to the bed.

  ‘I felt one hell of lot randier than I do right now too,’ I observed crossly. ‘What’s the plan?’

  ‘We leave here making more noise than usual. Say cheerio loudly in the pub and things like that. Candidly mention
that we’re going home, as the police isn’t for me. It also makes sense not to expose Mum and Dad to any more possible danger. I shall then take you home, but I’m going to come back tonight. Live rough, or at least undercover, and watch these characters at the mill. If – and I’m not for a moment saying you didn’t find the ingots – if they still haven’t recovered the gold themselves it’s fairly certain they’ll go looking for it. I shall be there too, shadowing them.’

  ‘Hoping they’ll find it and you can alert Carrick?’

  ‘Yes, or incriminate themselves in some other way so I can fix it that they’re arrested while, say, loading the stuff in the car. We still need hard evidence.’

  ‘If only I could remember what I did with it,’ I fretted.

  ‘How did you manage to get the bag over the wall?’

  ‘I just heaved it up and dropped it over, having checked that no one was around.’ This took me by surprise, up until now everything I had done regarding the ingots had been a blank.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I climbed over by jamming a toe into a crevice.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I think I can recollect picking up the bag again. It’s a wonder I didn’t put my back out, and then I sort of cuddled it to myself and started walking. I was really worried someone would see me.’

  ‘Did you walk far?’

  ‘Too far, my arms were killing me – they still are. But I don’t know where I went. Sorry, it’s all a fog.’

  ‘What was going through your mind, though? Had you decided where you were going with the stuff when you left the mill?’

  ‘No, I don’t think I decided in advance. I just walked until something presented itself.’

  ‘Did you go across fields?’

  ‘Probably not. I wouldn’t have been able to manage fences and things like that.’

  ‘I’ll do a reconstruction if the Brandons don’t show, try to follow in your footsteps from the garages utilizing a lot of guesswork. Tonight, when I return.’

  ‘It would be far more useful if I could be here too. Then it might all come back to me.’