Bitter Pastoral_A DCI Caleb Cade Crime Thriller of rural Ancaster County.

by John R Goddard

  “Dead woman in ditch case, Sam Aystrup found her?” Daniel asks, surprising me as he seldom mentions my work.

  He coughs rather than laughs as he departs, “Eyes and ears, Ancaster fields. You ok, look wee bit peakier than usual? Good luck.”

  I nod, not knowing whether his good wishes are for tomorrow’s sparring match or the case of the dead woman which is not even mine.

  19

  My muscles lighten during fifteen minutes of jump roping. Gnarled twists in my mind untangle as stretches and breathing make me aware of every part of my body. Then shadow boxing, an out of body experience. Stance always changing fluidly according to the combination I create and so it is tonight.

  For the first time today I no longer feel everyone is watching, wanting to self-righteously bait the monster that I supposedly am. Wife killer, baby killer, destroyer of my own little one. Here, I am still one of the human tribe if only for a few hours; thus, it has always been. Beyond my Mother and Sam, Val, and my friend Jerry, this is my only family now. Few here are hostile or questioning, nobody brands me a horror. I am just Cade, one of them, end of story.

  A tall slim man approaches into my peripheral vision. A grey bouffant of thick hair swirling around his head, framing a sardonically oily skinned face, and eyes that dart out and around like a lizard when not strangely hooded. Boxing manager Dizzy Edge without a doubt. Rings galore on his long thin fingers, bling catching the light on both wrists, he deliberately stands too close as he studies me intently. Too close, for too long, a clear breach of boxing etiquette for a stranger to take such interest without invitation.

  He is oozed into an expensive light blue suit, pink shirt and matching blue tie. A black overcoat is slung over his shoulders for rakish effect like an East End spiv or a French gigolo in black and white movies of old. A wave of astringent deodorant makes me grimace. As I turn with my combinations still racking out, I see his mouth crinkling beneath a pencil thin moustache, but whether in appreciation or criticism I neither know nor care.

  My shadow routine continues. Sometimes he is in my vision, more often not as I swing and swerve. I stop at the allotted time a few minutes later, take a mouthful of water from the bottle at my feet, and turn to the man as I towel my face and neck. He stares at me appraisingly and goes to touch knuckles in greeting, the usual fashion in boxing but I do not respond.

  “Dizzy Edge.” he says, ignoring the slight even if he realises there has been one.

  His open eyes are flat, lifeless, calculating, “You’re sparring tomorrow. My boy Jase. Give him something to think about. I’ll tell him to go easy on you though hey?”

  He repeats the laughing horsey neigh of the ‘hey.’ I towel on, noting how he has lost the battle to add a sheen of the educated upper class to his grating East London accent.

  Daniel arrives quickly, distaste bitter on his mouth as he ushers Edge away and indicates my next task, ‘The Beast,’ with his head. Five clapping push-ups, twenty explosive box jumps strain leg, back and shoulder muscles. Ten alternating jumps from back to front foot and then the reverse, followed by fifteen squats, make every nerve and muscle cry for mercy and rest. Simply stopping crosses my mind as usual. At thirty-seven years old, perhaps it is time to take it a little easier. Daniel permitting.

  Now I hold the heavy round weight of the medicine ball on my head and do ten lunges forwards and back on one leg and then the other. Here is simple rhythm and my thoughts without fail return to my wider situation, dilemma, trauma, fate, call it what you will. What has happened to my wife and daughter?

  I stop, rest and stare around the gym, noting a score of boxers, men and women, labouring mightily as I am.

  ***

  All my boxing family stayed with me throughout these past seven years. Almost all. Five young men, oddly each a worker on the D'Eynscourte estate, had demanded that Daniel ban me from the club for my alleged crimes, or they would cease to attend. ‘Cat’ Rudd and Stephenson led the campaign, which came to a head the week of ‘The Box’ incident. Daniel had called all the gym’s two hundred members together, including the five who had made the threat.

  Their proud faces had showed they thought he was about to throw me out in a public spectacle. The vote was resoundingly for me to stay. The five began swearing, accusing Daniel of ‘a fix.’ He offered a match in the ring with himself or me as he rounded on them, expelling them forthwith when they backed away.

  “Innocent till proven guilty,” he had rasped, raking the gathering with his unforgiving gaze. “Boxing is a community of gladiators as these shite hawks will never understand.’”

  I loved the man for that, even more so as I suspect the D'Eynscourte Estate and other local sponsors did not like his attitude when that story became known through the local newspaper. It must have caused him financial hardship with what has always been at best a hand to mouth existence for his boxing club.

  ***

  Sparring with a professional, always a hazardous activity unless they took things very easy with you, was a small price to repay him. At least at that time I had managed to talk to Val, who continued sponsoring the club despite, and this is pure surmise, Bull’s protests.

  Sweat is down my arms, in my eyes, as my mind returns to training in the now. I throw the ball twenty times chest to chest to Daniel then and do twenty throws sideways to him too. The old man does not flinch as he receives and returns. I notice Edge, biting on a cigar he does not light, watching a trainer I do not know demand more speed from a young boxer, muscles rippling with liquid sheen, shadow boxing in a mirror with silkily swift moves in a far corner.

  ***

  My boxing family stayed with me. My police colleagues did not. Posing as my friend, an experienced detective who was actually on my side, the then DCI Creel’s caring opinion carried even more weight than if he had declared his open hostility. Yet Creel and Odling had quietly and effectively poisoned the well of police opinion. The majority of officers interpreted the selective evidence that was leaked – mother and child disappearing and never being seen again, the forensically expert clean-up of the house and lack of any clue, my car supposedly being seen nearby when it should have been in Wales, my being alone for the time period in question, a marriage that was going bad, a supposed tendency to violence in cases on my part - as meaning one thing. I was a murderer.

  Worse, I was getting away with it. Worse still, I was rubbing it in by staying in ‘The Job’. Only a copper who dealt in murder would know so much about forensics. Locard’s Principles of the science says that every contact leaves a trace. Therefore, it is impossible not to leave some clue, whether fingerprint, DNA, hand impression, foot or tyre print. But there was none, all was chemically cleaned to perfection within, erased by the weather it seemed without. Forensics works in three stages: collection, analysis, interpretation of data. Nothing to collect means you go nowhere. This did not help me. Only a copper would be able to cover his tracks and hide the bodies and the car so comprehensively. So, went the mantra. (Few pointed out that I was so clever that I let my own car be spotted, and did not have an alibi.) The rumours spread, only the motive and actual bodies were missing. Oh, and any concrete evidence. The husband often as not did it. I was guilty without being charged or tried.

  It may have been a quietly public campaign of pressure to force a confession. After their humiliation in ‘The Box,’ Creel and Odling spun it that I had gone insane with guilt that I could not let out. I actually think they just enjoyed inflicting the public humiliation. Whether I was guilty or not, they did not care. It may have been that Creel needed to discredit me further. After all, I was his only serious rival to be Chief Superintendent and Head of Ancaster C.I.D., a post for which we had both applied two months before that fateful December. He got the job. They could not appoint a man under such a cloud as I. With higher rank his version then carried even more weight.

  ***

  Such thoughts mean I hurl the ball extra hard at Daniel, and apologise even as he throws it back with
similar velocity, knocking the breath out of me as I stagger back. I clutch the ball and sink to my knees, resting on it. Now I can see how it had all come about. Then I could not. Creel had undoubtedly orchestrated things against me in the court of police opinion and it had worked.

  Cross over push-ups come next, the only exercise that still takes me to the very limit. Probably a wise move to extend me with serious sparring to come tomorrow. I place the medicine ball, then crouch down to do one handed push-ups from side to side of the shape, landing on a single different hand each time. After ten for each hand I can feel the nerves screeching in every sinew and nerve in my arms, and crave rest even if I have to sell my soul to the very devil.

  ***

  Straining up and down on bar lifts, my mind moves back to a score or more of seeds sown against me. When asked, Creel and Odling would undoubtedly profess they could say nothing about my case. Then with the odd reluctant hint here, the slight look of doubt there I can imagine them declaring often over the years, ‘DCI Cade, excellent copper, innocent, of course,’ a long pause and then, ‘but, but, the evidence does seem to suggest otherwise and he will not speak about it.’ Multiply that a score of times from each of them, a hundred times second hand where the story would be more graphically told and exaggerated. The two would be more open with cronies like Sergeant Brocksom, PCs Marshall and Smith, labelling me, ‘a clever so and so, getting away with murder right under our noses.’ Cops talk. The message spread ever onwards and outwards: ‘Chief Super Creel, good copper, Head of C.I.D, knows Cade did it. Clever bastard always did think he was better than the rest of us. Getting away with murder.’

  No one knew what had happened to my loved ones. Creel and Odling, the senior officers in charge, did not care. I could neither fathom events, nor grieve. Four months after my loss I found myself branded by innuendo with a thousand colleagues as the cold-blooded killer of my wife and daughter. Ostracism quickly followed. I could not even leave the force as I needed an income, needed to be close and settled for when and if my loved ones returned.

  From that point, I had simply not talked to anyone about it. Without any bodies, evidence of an actual crime, witnesses, forensics or comprehensive CCTV confirmation, Creel could not continue officially. Protocol demanded he had to tell me this. The Crown Prosecution Service sent back the file within a week, declining to proceed. Reading their note of response unofficially later, I saw the CPS had scrawled a very unseemly “Forget it” across the short-typed analysis.

  They could not prosecute the case with ‘any significant hope of a successful outcome,’ a top QC pronounced after studying all the papers afresh at Creel’s insistence. The powers-that-be in Ancaster Police persuaded those involved in ‘The Box’ interrogation that no charges or accusations should be brought against me for that incident. After all, they said, it was four against one so imagine how the canny defence lawyer I would undoubtedly hire would humiliate each of them in particular and the Force in general.

  ***

  I stop, stand silently watching the young man Jason going through a routine of shadow boxing in the ring now. In one corner, Edge preens benignly as the combinations of jab, cross, hook and uppercut radiate out in the dozen mirrors that reflect the rippling movements. This boy is younger, quicker, with a longer reach and slightly heavier than I am.

  Edge sees me watching and makes a slicing movement across the throat.

  Tuesday

  20

  A flash of white leaps across the window, dizzyingly fast, muscular menace. The dog catches the thrown crushed beer can in its fangs, and disappears from my view. Clearly a well-worn party trick it causes raucous laughter from unseen figures within. The back door is suddenly thrown open, the dog leaps out and hurtles around in circles before urinating against a shed and retreating indoors. I nervously finger the aniseed balls in my trouser pocket to double check they are there. An Ancaster trick to quell errant mutts, as taught to me by Sam. Thankfully I have never had cause to use it.

  I am a solitary traveller amidst the sleeping population of Malvingham village. Ye Olde Whyte Swanne’s bar is dimly lit, a few figures enjoying a ‘lock in.’ A large four-storey Edwardian house dominates the village square, home to an eccentric man with money who lives the life of a hermit in his attic, eschewing human company, using only candles for light which flicker now. Post office and shop are boarded up, long brought down by the relentless competition of supermarkets in Ister twenty miles to the north and Merian. The primary school’s windows are dark, matching every lane and shadow with street lamps long gone out in the cause of austerity.

  The bells of St Martin’s church strike one as I blend into deep woods of oak, sycamore and elder, their canopy of branches and leaves masking my presence. Everything is silent then, the sky thick with brooding cloud, snow lying soft on branch and bush.

  I have slipped from my meadow through woods for two miles to the far edge of the village proper. With only the fields beyond, the house that interests me has a concreted front, a back garden of mud with the remains of a motorbike, mower, quad bike and several cycles all rusting quietly away. The other five houses in the row of semi-detached are neat, tidy, laid to vegetables at the back with trimmed lawn and flower beds out front. All their lights are out and curtains drawn.

  The house that is my quarry boasts no curtain or blind, and hidden amongst the trees at the foot of their backyard, I can readily see inside to the stark interior. Six shadows are drinking beer, sat on old leather sofas with a large screen television throwing a green sheen from the football match silently playing in the kitchen diner at the rear.

  Light is thrown outside through large French windows without curtains so I have little hope of creeping nearer without being seen to identify all six or hear what this gathering is saying. Three I know will be present: Duane Rudd, his father James and Stephenson, who lodges with them; that specimen’s mother having thrown him out of their family house a few months ago. Three are mere dark shapes and I cannot risk getting closer.

  Once home after boxing training, thoughts of events that day had crowded in. For many of them I could see no other explanation than that there had been a concerted attempt to follow and unsettle me. The black pick up at Albion House before dawn, the same at Bert’s cafe and the incident there, the same vehicle at my mother’s house and then at D'Eynscourte Hall. How else could they have come across me save at Albion? I had also remembered that Stephenson’s criminal record included quite sophisticated burglaries, and Rudd Senior, an electrician by training, now works for a national burglar alarm fitting service. Both possible leads in the spate of burglaries locally of late. Worse, did this all somehow relate to the dead woman, whose case might involve my mother? As usual I could not sleep, and so decided to act.

  I had headed for their front door, planning to knock, enter and, ok, severely intimidate the two Rudds and their lodger for answers. Silly perhaps, but there you go. The game is afoot, my family is involved, and I would not be told nay. Everyone with any interest in my official well-being, including myself, would have advised against my plan of unlawful trespass and I hoped, violence. I was past caring.

  Five vehicles on the front concrete, one a black pick up, six shadows to be seen within when I crept around the back within the trees, meant instead I wait and watch as mice, voles, hungry rabbits or hares, scrabble in the background even as my clothes catch on the thick bushes that will make escape slow and difficult if I do need to flee.

  The back door is flung open then. I finger my aniseed balls, praying that what Sam made look so easy, getting a violent dog to lick them in his hand and go docile, would work for me. James Rudd shouts, ‘We smoke in here cuz, but not stinking stogies.’

  Detective Chief Inspector George Odling and my erstwhile childhood companion Bull emerge to stand smoking large cigars, each swigging from a full glass of red wine. Sadly, for me, they are content to stand and say nothing to explain their presence here.

  Bull, I can understand. He is cousin
to James Rudd, and they were reputedly as thick as thieves in their youth before a major fall out over a girl. Old differences must be forgotten. How else to explain Duane and Stephenson working for Bull’s estate. It would make sense of the harassment at Bert’s, the competing establishment belonging to Bull’s sister.

  But what could Odling possibly have in common with the Rudds? Bull, yes, similar characters of ill repute both, without an ethic in their heads and perhaps common callings in furthering their own joint interests. Wise to not be seen meeting together perhaps. And who would be watching here at this time of night in such freezing conditions?

  Was Odling involved in a conspiracy against me? Without question, he would use any means, fair or foul, to bring me down. It could explain his - against all the evidence - grabbing a case he could easily have left and going after my oldest friend for a hit and run that might finally crush old Sam’s spirit. One more body blow against me too. Despite all the stories of Odling’s dirty dealings, nobody had ever turned up a single shred of evidence though. Neither is his being here a clear misdeed, being easily explained I presume as information gathering - if it is recorded in his notebook.

  I do not believe in coincidence; I do believe in cockup or conspiracy and this all reeks of the latter. But there must be more to this. I cannot be important enough for such efforts simply against me, no matter the level of malice these six hold.

  Bull and Odling go back in. I watch the six figures - father James Rudd, Duane, Stephenson, Bull, Odling and one other who remains out of sight as a mere shadow in a corner seat.

  Branch and bush tweak and moan until Bull and Odling rise to depart half an hour later. Bull throws a small package carelessly, perhaps contemptuously down on a table. I hear the front door, the opening and close of car doors, see the stab of headlights as they quietly drive away. The kitchen goes black; two figures make their way upstairs as lights go on there and then switch off. I still have not seen the sixth person beyond a large silhouette of a man who may have left with the other two. Could it have been Creel? No, a foolish thought, he would not stoop so low and is not as young or bulky.