Grave Stones

by Priscilla Masters

  He put the phone down, stood up, recalling the hysterical words. ‘I think rats… Something’s… He’s…’

  Korpanski saved all the data on the computer. ‘Who’s reported it?’

  ‘A neighbour. From number 1 on the estate. She says she thinks it’s the farmer.’ He looked almost apologetic, ‘and that he’s been lying there some time.’

  Korpanski stood up then, revealing his entire, bulky, six-foot-four frame. ‘Well, we’d better get out there then, hadn’t we, see what’s what.’

  He took Timmis and King with him, blue light flashing, siren screaming, racing along the Ashbourne road out of the town. A back-up car with a couple of WPCs and some uniformed officers kept up with them. As Korpanski drove he remembered. The odd thing was that he knew Prospect Farm quite well. When he was a kid, growing up in Leek, he had sometimes walked out to the place, just outside the town. He even remembered the farmer, a crusty old thing even then, and the daughter, who had been at the same school as him; a sly little girl who watched her classmates’ mischief without comment then whispered in the teacher’s ear. She had been a plain girl, insignificant, stick-thin, short on friends, always making a nuisance of herself wanting to play. He wondered what had happened to her and tried to remember her name but failed. The last he’d heard she was nursing somewhere in Stoke.

  There had been a wife too but he didn’t know what had happened to her. She hadn’t been around for years and he couldn’t even remember what she’d looked like. The daughter must not live at home because the farmer lived alone these days. He’d seen him once or twice around the town on cattle market days, wearing the same blue cotton dungarees and tweed coat he had favoured years before, tied around the middle with orange nylon baling twine.

  Korpanski screamed through red traffic lights, cursing as an aged driver in a Morris 1000 seemed paralysed before the kerfuffle and straddled the crossing, finally moving forwards so the squad car could inch through.

  Korpanski resumed his dragnet of information about Prospect Farm and its inhabitants. About ten years ago the farm had shrunk as houses had encroached on its land, emphasising its scruffiness. Korpanski winced. Fran would have loved to have lived in one of the executive-type dwellings but the houses on the estate were out of the pocket-range of a mere detective sergeant. All the same, Korpanski had witnessed the area’s progress through the years with interest. Each time he’d found himself in the area, he’d driven round the estate, dreaming, noting that the contrast wasn’t simply manifested by the buildings; the gap between the yuppie types who inhabited the mock-Tudor houses and the crumbling farm seemed to be widening.

  And now this.

  He took the turn sharply into the Prospect Farm Estate, screeching to a halt in front of Number 1.

  Kathleen Weston was waiting for him in the drive. He saw a distressed woman in her forties, dressed in a zip-up sweater and faded jeans. Her face was green, her arms wrapped tightly around her, hugging herself as she rocked to and fro on a pair of trainers. Korpanski waited as the second car pulled up behind him. This, he thought, with a touch of wry humour, needed a woman’s touch.

  And Piercy was missing until tomorrow morning. Korpanski smiled to himself. She’d be furious at missing all the drama. He made a sudden face. Because for that matter, Levin was away, too. The most important thing to ascertain now would be cause of death. Natural causes, they could all go home. But if there were any grounds for suspicion… Well – no problem. He could manage this one for the first twenty-four hours at least. Korpanski gave a little grin of confidence to himself. Even up to Inspector Piercy’s standards.

  He climbed out of the car. ‘Mrs Weston?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You rang us?’

  Again she nodded. The two WPCs stood either side of her, ready for hysterics, but Kathleen Weston looked calmer now, keeping herself tightly reined in for the police presence.

  ‘I think it’s the farmer,’ she said in a tense voice, lifting haunted eyes to his face. She would not forget what she had seen even when she closed her eyes. It was as though the scene had been painted on the inside of her eyelids. ‘I think he’s been dead a while. The smell,’ she said, her eyes flickering along the road as she tried to keep them open. ‘I’ve noticed the smell for a few days.’

  ‘Let’s take a look, shall we?’ Korpanski shot a meaningful glance at WPC Dawn Critchlow. However brave Mrs Weston was being he knew this pale, dead fish look of shock. She took the hint and moved towards Mrs Weston. ‘Come with me.’

  Kathleen Weston led them through a tall oak gate into the back garden then glanced ahead to the wall, which was the boundary between her land and the farm. The first thing Korpanski noticed was the irregularity caused by the missing copestone. The second was the smell.

  They call it the smell of death.

  Korpanski and DC King left Dawn Critchlow to care for the shaken woman and walked carefully up the garden path, taking note of the orderly garden and the lavender hedge, which did little to mask the scent. He carried on, towards the boundary, took one look over the wall and, mirroring Kathleen Weston’s response, almost threw up.

  The crumpled figure of the farmer lay propped up against the stones, almost tucked beneath them. His chin had dropped forward onto his chest, presenting the back of his head, and his legs were stretched out in front of him. Korpanski could see only too clearly the terrible damage done to the back of the skull and took in, within seconds, the entire bloody scene around him: the copestone, lying innocently nearby in the mud; the wall spattered with blood, hair and a nasty, dried-up jelly-like substance that he took to be brain tissue. And Mrs Weston was right. The fingers had been nibbled, probably by rats. He spoke over his shoulder to Alan King. ‘You’re going to have to summon a full forensic team,’ he said. ‘It’s either one hell of a coincidence that the stone fell on the exact spot where unlucky old farmer Grimshaw decided to have a picnic or else the poor guy’s been bashed over the head and we’ve got ourselves a murder scene. Either way we’ll need the police surgeon and some shelter.’ He backed away from the wall. ‘A couple of uniformed had better start house-to-house and interview anyone who’s at home this side of the road. Leave the other side till later. And try and contact the daughter for identification, will you?’ They walked together back up the path, nodding to Dawn Critchlow as they passed her, supporting the stricken woman. ‘We’d better make our access route up the farm track. That’ll leave this area relatively clear.’

  Within an hour the farm was sealed off, as were the back gardens of the houses that backed onto the farm. A team of officers was interviewing all the inhabitants in the odd numbers of Prospect Farm Estate and Doctor Jordan Cray, Matthew Levin’s locum, was examining the body.

  ‘Can you say how long he’s been dead?’ Korpanski asked hopefully.

  Cray turned to face him. ‘Somewhere around a week,’ he said. ‘There’s been quite a bit of rodent and insect activity. It might be worth summoning a forensic entomologist. Do you know when he was last seen alive? Family?’

  Korpanski shook his head. ‘There’s a daughter,’ he said. ‘I think she’s now a nurse somewhere in Stoke. They’re trying to locate her.’ He was practically hopping from one foot to the other. ‘But I don’t think they were close. There was a wife but no sign of her for a number of years. Can you tell whether it was homicide or accident?’

  Both Cray and Korpanski looked at the copestone. ‘Almost certainly the ultimate cause of death was multiple skull fractures due to this stone coming into contact with the poor man’s head, which I suppose in a very unlucky life could conceivably be an accident. But,’ he said, picking up one of the dead man’s bagged hands, ‘there are defensive injuries. And more than one blow. The poor guy was trying to protect himself from an assailant. He was felled and probably slumped against the wall. Then our killer probably dislodged that thing from behind, delivering the fatal injury.’

  Korpanski nodded and looked around him.

  As a crime
scene it was a nightmare. Soft mud left impressions – until the rains came again and again and washed them all away. There were even animal footprints. Little paws, bigger ones. They had sniffed, licked, nibbled and walked away into the night, having sullied his crime scene.

  ‘Sir.’

  He jerked in response to the urgency in DC King’s tone, following the detective’s tread with a feeling of foreboding.

  The body of a black and white Welsh Border collie was stretched out on the concrete area near the front door of the farmhouse. The dog lay rigid, a feeding bowl just within reach of the chain that fastened him to the wall via a ring on his collar. Korpanski wasn’t a great dog lover. As a uniformed policeman on the beat he’d been bitten too many times to feel much affection for the animal. But he did love Border collies. Partly because his grandmother had owned one and partly because he saw the breed as the equivalent of policemen. Black and white, hardworking and loyal in a bouncy, energetic sort of way. Working dogs. He hunkered down on his meaty thighs and stretched out a hand. The dog was stiff and cold, its mouth open, saliva and vomit nearby.

  When he stood up again he felt angry.

  ‘There’s more,’ King said quietly. ‘Animals in the sheds.’

  Korpanski didn’t want to see it. He felt upset about the dog. ‘Call a vet,’ he said brusquely.

  Mark Fask, the civilian scenes of crime officer, was taping off access corridors, marking the stones and organising a search of the farmyard and house, while the police photographer was taking pictures of the body, the wall and the dog.

  Having made a pot of strong tea Dawn Critchlow was ‘chatting’ to Kathleen Weston. ‘So tell me, when did you last see the farmer?’

  ‘A week, ten days ago. I can’t remember precisely.’ Her face was blotchy but the colour was returning. The tea was working.

  ‘Would you like me to call your husband?’

  An expression close to distaste crossed the woman’s face. ‘Don’t bother,’ she said dryly. ‘He’ll be home when he’s finished his work.’ The last word was uttered with a note of mockery, a fact which Critchlow squirreled away.

  She glanced around the kitchen, taking in the cream units and black granite tops, and unwittingly echoed Korpanski’s thoughts. ‘Nice place you have here.’

  Way beyond the pocket of a WPC.

  Mrs Weston looked around the room as though surprised at the comment. ‘Yes,’ she said, frowning, ‘I suppose it is.’

  Dawn Critchlow struggled not to roll her eyes at the mega-sized kitchen absolutely stuffed with units, which opened onto an enormous conservatory that housed not only an eight-seater dining table but also a soft and comfortable-looking sofa, which she would simply love to sink down into at the end of a busy day. WPC Dawn Critchlow’s husband had been a garage mechanic on the Ashbourne road but the garage had closed last year. He’d tried to open a car repairs business on his own and had ended up badly in debt. The only job he’d been able to find since had been as a shelf-stacker in the local DIY store, which was not only poorly paid but which he hated. However, he had no choice but to take what was offered. They’d remortgaged their tiny terraced house twice and only by the skin of their teeth avoided having it repossessed. To make up the short fall in their finances, she volunteered for all the overtime she could get, which made her permanently tired. Sometimes she dreamt of living in a house like this. And then she woke up.

  She sighed. She didn’t mind folk living in wonderful houses but she hated it when they didn’t appreciate how lucky they were.

  ‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked Kathleen chattily.

  Something passed across the woman’s face. ‘Five years,’ she said tightly. She could have said five unhappy years but instead she followed up with, ‘We bought it new.’

  ‘And do you like it here?’

  Korpanski used to say that WPC Critchlow must have a degree in getting information out of people. She was a natural at the art. They didn’t even know they were being interrogated.

  ‘Not really,’ Mrs Weston returned frankly.

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘The smell,’ Kathleen said.

  ‘That’s only been for the last few days – surely?’

  Kathleen Weston took a deep lungful of air then wrinkled her nose as though her breath was tainted. ‘No – I don’t mean that. Yes, that’s new. The place was – I don’t think he looked after his animals properly,’ she said. ‘They were dirty, neglected. I never saw him clean out a barn or a shed. The cows and pigs were without water, sometimes left inside in hot weather.’ Her voice became impassioned. ‘He wasn’t fit to look after animals.’

  Whoah. Animals’ Rights, Dawn Critchlow thought. She knew the sort.

  * * *

  Next door but one, PC McBrine was having more success with Peter Mostyn though instinctively he didn’t like the short, balding man with the shiny suit, the evasive eyes and the over-willingness-to-help syndrome, who smelt too strongly of an identifiable Lynx deodorant. Africa.

  ‘Anything I can do to assist the police.’

  Mostyn was irritating him already with his pasty face and sweating forehead.

  ‘Just answer my questions, sir,’ McBrine began formally. ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Six years.’

  ‘Alone?’

  Mostyn’s face leaked anger. ‘Not at first,’ he said.

  McBrine simply raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I came here with my wife. She left me three years ago. For another man. We’re getting divorced.’

  McBrine almost sniffed it in: spite, jealousy, hatred, financial problems.

  ‘Any children, sir?’

  Mostyn dropped the play-acting and scowled. ‘I don’t see what that’s got to…’

  Which confirmed McBrine’s supposition. He smiled.

  ‘Three,’ Mostyn said tightly. ‘They spend a lot of time here.’

  ‘I bet they like it, with the farm.’

  The simple comment softened Mostyn’s face to something proud, paternal, almost beatific. ‘My daughter, Rachel, does particularly,’ he said. ‘She rides the pony sometimes.’

  McBrine smiled in fake empathy.

  ‘But my son, well…’ he held his hands out, palms uppermost. ‘I don’t think it makes any difference where he is,’ he said. ‘As long as he’s hooked into his video games. And my youngest daughter, Morag – well – she’s quite young. Only four.’

  ‘When did you last see the farmer, Mr Grimshaw?’

  Mostyn looked vague. ‘I haven’t a clue,’ he said.

  ‘Might it be worthwhile asking your daughter?’

  Mostyn shrugged. ‘Possibly. But I really don’t think—’

  ‘When was your daughter last here?’

  ‘She was here the weekend of the eighth and ninth. She left on the Sunday evening.’

  ‘And your son?’

  ‘Was here the same time.’

  ‘Did your daughter ride that weekend?’

  Reluctantly, Mostyn nodded very slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘she did.’

  ‘On the Saturday or the Sunday?’

  ‘Both days.’

  ‘We’re going to want to speak to her.’

  Mostyn looked wary.

  ‘Naturally, as her father, we’d expect either you or your wife to sit in on the interview.’

  ‘Ex-wife,’ Mostyn said, but he looked mollified.

  DC Danny Hesketh-Brown, next door, was having a pretty tough time of it. His problem was that his eyes were very blue, his hair dark, his features regular, and he was six-foot tall with an athletic bearing. Women were drawn to him like the proverbial bees to a honey pot.

  Charlotte Frankwell opened the door to number 3 and gave the policeman one of her winning smiles.

  He brandished his ID card in front of her nose and she invited him in. She sat opposite him at the kitchen table, leaning forward to display an impressive and possibly fake cleavage. What Charlotte didn’t know was that in spite of his
appearance she was wasting her time. Hesketh-Brown had one man and two women in his life: one an intelligent and attractive wife, Betsy, who was a teacher in Tunstall, in the Potteries; the second, his daughter Tanya, who was six months old; and the little man, Tom, a sturdy six-year-old who already had a plastic policeman’s helmet that he practically went to bed in. And the tiny baby and his wife were the only women likely to be in his life for the foreseeable future.

  However, for all his morals, Danny Hesketh-Brown was a man and he hadn’t missed out on the skinny jeans and white see-through shirt. And Charlotte Frankwell wasn’t wearing a bra to restrain those bouncing breasts. Had he been available she would have been a very tempting proposition. Heske-Brown sighed. Time was… Then he remembered the kisses that had sent him off to work that morning and felt ashamed.

  ‘There’s been an accident at the farm,’ he began awkwardly.

  ‘What sort of accident?’

  ‘The farmer, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh.’ She seemed unconcerned. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  She seemed not to have heard him decline the offer, clip-clopping into the kitchen on pink stiletto mules and absent-mindedly filling the kettle. She turned around then to face him in an almost choreographed move and he wondered why such an attractive woman who didn’t look over thirty felt she had to be so obvious – wearing blatantly seductive clothes and an awful lot of make-up. She concentrated on spooning deliciously scented ground coffee into a cafetière and filled it with boiling water. ‘Well, the farmer’s old,’ she said. ‘I guess it was bound to happen sometime.’

  Hesketh-Brown hesitated. Grimshaw must have seemed ancient to her but all the same this was a callous response. Even if an expression of sympathy was sometimes a formality, he would still have expected it. He had to remind himself that Charlotte Frankwell wasn’t aware of the circumstances of Grimshaw’s death. He let her carry on believing that poor old Grimshaw had met with an accident. Too early to start promoting the official line, anyway. Until the post-mortem was completed, nothing was certain.