She knows my desire, can visibly see it, a lilt of disarming laughter as she draws back, “Well, if you cannot respond to this skirt, you might as well be dead.”
And the spell of an angel sweeping me into her arms, of losing myself from all my torments in loving hours even just once more, is gone. Someone married, devoted to her two children, not someone I can offer anything to with my lost years past, the same stretching ahead. Do I detect a note of regret on her part, or am I dreaming once more?
“But what, what are you doing here?” my voice is practical to break the spell, to hide my confusion, disappointment, my overtly showing desire, shame at the state I am in, disgrace at trying to take advantage.
We break apart as she moves her stool and sits a yard away, once more primly with knees together, smoothing her skirt down as far as it will go which is only just above her knees.
***
In the bath room, I splash my face with cold water over and over. I shake my head again. This is not a dream.
I return to my Incident Room. Amy is here, who knows how or why, but is not herself. Her long blonde hair is slightly askew, her make up slightly overdone in places, her light pink dress too slight and far too short for this weather or for work.
It is my turn to show concern. She is stoic, matter of fact: her father had a heart attack mid evening, was rushed into Merian’s Cottage hospital.
“Peter is looking after the kids, I threw some clothes on in a rush,” she pauses, as though she has said too much.
She laughs to cover something, her embarrassment perhaps but does not look at me, “Including this old dress that is way too, well, small, see through too in the wrong light, and I rushed over to be with my mother at the bedside. Remembered a thick coat at least.”
Her father is stable, in no danger, her mother is with him and Amy needed a break, “To see a friend and give you some information I read only yesterday that might help. I know you retire very late so here I am.”
My attention is only partly on her words as she tells me her news. A PC and a CPSO in their monthly write up of things happening in their area reported yesterday that people who worked in two local estate agents have noted large swathes of land around Ancaster Acre being quietly bought up by a London solicitor over the past year.
For a thousand years, the Acre village, castle, monastery and its estate had served Pedlar’s Way, the Roman, Norman and medieval trackway from London through Ancaster City to the north-east of England. Playing host over the centuries to a bevy of Kings and Queens from William the Conqueror to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
A place of renown and pilgrimage for its devout religious order, relics, learning and wisdom until Henry sacked it. At its zenith, it was one of the most venerated centres of learning in Europe, full of great scholars in its famed ‘House of Wisdom’, reading and writing in that library that was supposedly the equal of anything the legendary Alexandria’s had once acclaimed. Yet despite the dangers of punishment for being loyal to Roman Catholicism, the pilgrims flocked for centuries after the dissolution of the monasteries to glimpse these mythic portals to great knowledge and learning and the enchanting ancient soul of all humankind. A place where your sensations intensify as at no other time or scale for both the inner and the outer being. Thus, runs the mantra of the Ancaster Acre.
Now a series of cavernous ruins, preserved for tourists to wander, locals to romance there and families to enjoy summer picnics in the lavish landscaped grounds. Despite a small cafe and entrance charge, the extensive site leads a perilous existence with its aging, if dedicated band, of volunteers dwindling naturally away.
“I checked on the lawyer and, informed sources have it, his big clients are the D'Eynscourte estate and a Chinese bank,” Amy breathes quietly, smiling. “The girls’ network told me you had found a Chinese connection to your Albion dinner party, odd coincidence so thought I would come and tell you.”
Is there any connection? Why would a Chinese bank want an out of the way tourist spot and surrounding farm land, even if it is genuine ‘olde England?’ Why would Valentine want more land, especially forty miles distant from his own estate and south of Ancaster City, even if it is prime agricultural land and no doubt fetching a high price for sell-on with European and Asian investors ever eager for business opportunities in rural Britain with its weak post Brexit currency. Norwegians buy woodland to replace their own depleted stocks, the French buy land ready for when climate change makes their own soil less appropriate for vineyards, the Chinese would buy this for what strategic reason? And how do the dead woman, my mother and father link to any of this, if at all?
Amy hands me a file from her voluminous handbag, “Another report made the link for me too. His Lordship and two well to do Chinese women in a silver Bentley toured the area, with the Chairman of the Acre Trust last week and discussed things nobody will speak of when I discreetly tried a few calls to people I know locally down there.”
Amy is animated, “But more, Creel was in my office and saw the reports as he was lecturing me that laddering must apply tightly from now on, and Intelligence should stop this proactive side of things.”
Indignation seeps out, “He got very angry all of a sudden, when he saw and flicked through the Acre file I had on my desk. And left without another word, taking the file with him.”
Angry red spots are on her cheeks then, “An hour later, Odling came in, asked to see the original reports about the Acre, telling me he would file them as highly confidential and I should delete the electronic version for ‘operational reasons’ he said.”
Creel had confirmed that order an hour later, Amy goes on, in awe at the sheer crassness of their attempt to stifle this. Luckily, she had, as we always did, kept a spare physical copy which was now in my hands and an archived electronic one, encrypted just for Intelligence.
I calm her by asking how she actually got in my house. She needed a break from the hospital, needed to see a friendly face, needed to give me this information and not leave an email trail so had driven over.
“They have made me paranoid too, I left the car in your woods, wellies on, walked over your beloved wild meadow, let myself in.”
With my mother and Jerry, Amy is one of only three key and password holders to be contacted if my burglar alarm goes off.
Her voice is softly sad and lost then, “You had no alarm on, your door to this room was open. Found you sleeping the slumber of the dead up here at your desk in,” she hesitates while looking around, plunges on, “what is a major Incident Room - investigating the disappearance of Bess and Grace.”
My nod is a murmur to her comment, “I suspected but never knew for certain, very impressive even for seven years of work alone.”
Amy’s face is all sweet understanding as she wanders and surveys the stacks of evidence boxes, half dozen white boards and mass of photos, sketches and notes across three whole walls.
She instinctively makes to sit by me once more but stops herself and says, “And I sat with you for two hours, not wanting to disturb you, terrified I would need an ambulance for the second time today.”
“I studied your boards - those postcards are horrible, but explain your trips abroad. But why not tell anyone and why have yourself up on your list of suspects?”
I cannot speak, she studies me silently before nodding in understanding, “You do not trust Creel or Odling. And ah, to rule yourself out so as to be ready for others who have you nailed, they think?”
I am too exhausted even to nod. We sit, saying nothing. At least I know I have one friend and have partially laid aside my mother’s revelations. For a few hours.
42
Wayward dogs bark, cocks crow, a lonely sheep bleats. Soft snowflakes flutter down on me, glimmering a haunting light in this early hour after a black night.
Memories burn. The clack of needles, tick-tock of clock, spit of glowing embers, stifling heat, my mother’s icy revelations larrup in my brain.
The world outside is halted, pau
sed, five degrees below freezing, its heart battened down beneath the white shroud of snow. My world is changed, perhaps utterly. My poor mother. All these years. And not a word, a look, a gesture did I note. Me, the great detective.
Sleep was impossible after my talk with Amy. Through the rest of the night till now in the early morn I sit on an old bench set within a copse of thick trees on the edge of my garden. Even the sight of my wild meadow manifesting in the dark dawn does not prompt the usual cartwheel in my heart. It is the creation of so many days of work by Bess and I and various nature enthusiasts when we first came here. The natural is not a given in a surrounding world of chemicals and planned cultivation. Plants, insects and birds by the score that struggled in that modern world came to ours and flourished through our efforts to create ‘the natural.’
On cue, two waxwings appear in the hedgerow, seeking the bountiful feast of juniper, rowan and mistletoe berries set for just their purpose. I have seen an irruption of these birds, stuffing themselves on our crab-apples, decimating the mini-orchard in minutes, panic eating, binge drinking. These two are more sedate, actually passing berries to each other, forming a bond before their long journey to northern Europe once winter eases in their homeland.
I call to Jerry as I see him park beside the cottage. His footsteps crump on the crisp snow. ‘Crump,’ a word from John Clare, the labouring poet who wrote so intimately from within nature. Jerry sits beside me without a word. He has been in Ister with his grandmother. He knows things are amiss.
His hand on my arm, his voice a murmur amidst the whispering snow, “Tell me.”
I do. Of Amy. No laughter, merely a wistful comment, ‘Still celibate then.’ I add the information about people buying up Ancaster Acre.
“Tell me all,” the words more insistent now. I do. Of my mother, my father, Rupert D'Eynscourte, my aunt Penny, Val her son, of my mother’s weary burden and almost double life and secrets suffered for three decades.
Jerry stands, stares at my snow layered meadow through the trees at dawn.
His voice when it comes is heavy, “Your poor Ma. But you are not a beast of burden Cal, this is not more guilt for you to lay upon your back.”
He turns, knows logic is not in play here with this as I study the snow beneath my feet, all crisp and deep and even.
He tries again, “Caleb, your mother, it is a question of either her sister actually loving D’Eynscourte or him being one sick bastard who exploited her for revenge, needed to get his own comeuppance and did. But none of that is your fault. Bess and Grace, not your fault, something has happened to them, we will find out and will sort it. They have not just left and disappeared.”
Hoarse and nasal, I ignore my own tears even as I am unsure whether I am talking about my mother’s woes or my own, “I should have seen, noticed, helped, understood.”
He shakes his head violently, helpless to combat the demons that plague my brain.
Then Jerry startles me, jerking around and moving in an instant as a buzzing alarm sounds in his pocket. Even as he runs, he pulls a small control panel out which he turns in a half circle, pointing it towards my cottage as he hits the screen three times and mouths ‘Yes’ in triumph as there is a small crump of an object crashing like the crash of a small shell in old war films.
***
With that Jerry is off, running around the back of my house, skidding over the frozen five-foot wide stream and plunging into the thick thorny gorse bushes within the wood beyond.
I am slow to follow. My friend emerges grinning from the woods, holding a short spotty young man by the back of his neck. Swearing and kicking out, the young man stops instantly when he sees me.
Jerry ushers him across the iced-up water, saying loudly, “Drowning might be the best solution for you, sunshine.”
All three of us look down, the ice is broken ten yards away and two points of black metal peep out a foot apart above the dark water.
“Thousands of pounds there, you owe me,” the boy says accusingly. “Top drone and camera that.”
“Enough”, Jerry says, voice light and normal as though this is an everyday occurrence. “It’s a piece of crap and you know it, and you crashed it after all.”
My friend’s eyes are bright as he hands me his control panel and says quietly, “Nice spoof job I set up to cover your cottage, can take over other drones, control them, bring them down, whatever, careful that panel really is worth thousands.”
Jerry takes a much smaller similar panel out of the captured man’s pocket and laughs, “Little runt was operating a drone camera to film and take photographs of your cottage and people visiting no doubt.”
My mind turns to whether this young man was doing anything but trespass, hardly a major crime. I am a policeman after all.
“You have no right, freedom of the press Cade, public interest story,” he blusters.
I ask him for proof of identity and of his being a journalist. I move close to him as Jerry grips him tighter and take out his wallet from within his thick black anorak so beloved of film crew members.
His driving licence gives a London address, amazingly he is aged twenty-seven. His press pass from a London agency, which has supplied the images for all the major cheer leaders about ‘the evil butcher Cade,’ does not endear him to me. Their catchiest campaign online, Lucinda told me, was ‘Bring back hanging for such as Cade’. This man’s name is Tony Blair.
“Real name,” he says defensively when Jerry and I both laugh out loud when I announce it. It feels so good, fresh air and laughter, the simple things in life.
“Seriously, you were named after Bambi ….” Jerry asks.
As I look more carefully at his expensive thick coat and boots, the man’s bravado returns, “You wait till our lawyers get through with you.”
Jerry lets me take over guard duty while he studies the man’s control panel.
“Crap camera but not live streaming what he was getting ….”
“Just setting up, dumbo,” Mr Blair says. “Not enough light yet and this model cannot live stream, you prick ….”
I do not see the touch, which flutters out and back so adeptly, catching the young man at the side of his throat. He goes silent immediately, concentrating on breathing.
We escort Mr Blair through the woodlands to his Mercedes estate car.
He stumbles once and looks up, fearing we are going to give him a kicking. Jerry would.
“It’s just a job,” he whimpers at the unspoken threat, his voice finally returning after Jerry’s blow rendered him only able to wheeze. “Catch DCI Cade in flagrante, a woman expected at his house today or tomorrow.”
We help the man through the rough gorse to his car. I stand him facing me at the front, warn him not to darken my door ever again and formally caution him for trespass, criminal damage (‘your drone onto my land’) and some other nonsense I concoct. While unseen behind him, Jerry notes the other two drones in the car boot and bends to check the back tyres.
I leave Jerry to have a personal final word with the man, hoping it will only be verbal.
Walking back Jerry is thoughtful, “Sophisticated, very expensive load bearing drones in his car - not ones to take press photos with Cal.”
“Our Mr Blair merits some further checks,” I mutter, texting Whittle with his details.
It is only six a.m. yet Whittle rings back instantly, “On my way guv.”
I am helping Jerry untangle himself from gorse thorns that are clinging to his immaculate suit trousers and duffel coat as I ask quickly, “Your way where?”
The Control Room had rung her thirty minutes before, asking that she pick me up and bring an overnight bag. I tell her not to bother, that it is a hoax I will explain later. The plot thickens, even more so when the Control Room deny making any such call.
“They are after you Caleb. Time for us. Scope, lure, scorch and burn,” says my friend as we walk back to the house.
Thankfully the ‘burn’ is metaphorical. I think.
&nb
sp; 43
Once inside Jerry slips upstairs to sleep, reflecting, “My Gran’s old single bed never was comfy.”
The bell jangles warning that someone is at my gates, which open and close again after I admit Sergeant Parsons.
If the drone cameraman was told he would catch me in a supposed romantic assignation this morning he could have had three to choose from – Whittle, Amy and now Parsons. Sadly, I know which of them my money is on as being part of any deliberate plan to discredit me. I can almost see the headline: ‘Suspected family killer cop - new love.’
I should take Parsons away from the bugs but, honestly, cannot be bothered. If she is against me then she will pass details on in any event. She sits at my kitchen table. I offer breakfast but she demands only coffee, even as she stares around at a room as derelict as I. The kettle gurgles. I prepare fresh coffee for two, porridge and a round of toast for me alone. Her gaze falls on Grace’s small yellow lorry, the large kite standing forlorn in one corner, and then to me, horror and disgust etched into her sneer. My now blackening bruises do not merit a mention.
I pour the boiling water on the ground coffee. My mind is long ago, enjoying brunches of bacon, sausage, hash browns, pancakes and maple syrup American style. Then Jean came to visit as a friend of the family, stayed over, even joining us for ‘Lorries’ and proving adept at kite flying with Grace who loved her for it.
I pour unseeing, not wanting her here now, an unfriend. As hot water drips off the unit top to the floor I jolt to the here and now. Parsons stares in disbelief. I am just grateful the overflowing liquid has not scalded me.
Beginning again I concentrate, grinding beans, boiling water, clicking mugs, milk and cream, in precision.
Her tone is accusing, “Your mother’s house was burgled last night.”
I am instantly alert, tiredness forgotten.
“Was Sam hurt? My mother is away, he is staying. You should have called me.”
Bitter Pastoral_A DCI Caleb Cade Crime Thriller of rural Ancaster County. Page 26
