Grave Stones

by Priscilla Masters

  She looked around the room. ‘Keep digging,’ she said.

  * * *

  She knew as well as the others that once they had a suspect forensics could move in, search the car, look for mud right up in the wheel arches. Something would be there. Locard’s Principle said so. Each contact leaves a trace. A visitor to a crime scene takes something from it and leaves something behind. She had solved more frustrating and puzzling cases than this. The darkest hour, as they say, is just before dawn. Her face twisted into a smile. And this certainly was a dark hour.

  The officers filed out, their feelings displayed by a dropping of shoulders, a heaviness in their walk. She badly wanted to inspire them but could not find the way to punch through.

  Korpanski, too, was quiet, his eyes resting on her face. He was waiting for her to take the lead.

  She looked across at him and couldn’t resist a smile. Korpanski was a large, powerful man who spent hours at the gym keeping fit and muscular. But right now he looked almost vulnerable. She felt an urge to pat his shoulder. ‘Let me sit here quietly for a moment, Mike,’ she said. ‘Something significant has been said in the briefing. I just need to think for a while.’

  She sat without speaking, going over all that had been said. Returning to the beginning was always a good start. The old farmer had been murdered. That was the crime they were investigating. In doing so they had unearthed a second murder. Why? Why would Grimshaw kill his wife if not because she had been unfaithful? So how did the two murders interlock? What bearing did the first crime have on the second?

  What connection could there be? Cause? Effect?

  The answer was obvious. Mr X.

  She picked up the phone and was connected with an irritated Judy Grimshaw on her mobile. She didn’t bother with any preamble. ‘Your mother,’ she began. ‘Tell me about her affair.’

  There was an irritated snort from the other end of the phone.

  ‘This isn’t a good time, Inspector,’ she began, a tight band of sarcasm making her voice harsh.

  ‘I don’t really care,’ Joanna replied equally rudely. ‘Your father has been murdered, your mother too, it appears.’

  ‘It isn’t my fault the police don’t have a clue.’

  Joanna felt her dislike for the farmer’s daughter grow to huge and almost unmanageable proportions. She swallowed the bile that was rising in her mouth and decided on a subtle attack. ‘You don’t want to cooperate with us, Judy? You do surprise me, under the circumstances.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  By the defensive tone in the woman’s voice, Joanna knew that she’d managed to crawl under her skin.

  She smiled and waited. Sometimes silence asks more questions than the most articulate interrogator.

  But Judy was silent too.

  ‘Come on, Judy,’ she coaxed. ‘Stop obstructing us.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Joanna permitted herself a smirk. At last. At last Judy Grimshaw was beginning to crack. She could sense the vulnerability in her voice, hear the tremor, the hesitation, the sheer fright. She knew what had rattled her. It had been the term obstruction. A nice legal term, which Judy Grimshaw was wise enough to recognise as such.

  ‘The next door farmer,’ she said slowly and reluctantly, ‘is a widower. His wife died of breast cancer years and years ago. I was just a kid. She was ill for ages before that. My mother used to cook meals and take them round. I always wondered. He’s a nice man. Cultured and different…’ there was wonderment in her voice, ‘from my dad.’

  ‘His name?’ Joanna already knew it.

  ‘Mark Dudson. He’s vaguely connected with the Dudson pottery family. I think he’s still living next door. He has a prize herd of Charolais. I haven’t seen him for a long time but I believe he’s still there.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Joanna said coldly and put the phone down.

  She turned to Mike with a wide smile. ‘Come on, Korpanski,’ she said teasingly. ‘Wake up, put your coffee down. We’ve got work to do.’

  Mark Dudson’s farm was approached from a track two miles beyond Prospect Farm. It looked prosperous and well-cared for, with a board painted with a creamy-white bull announcing the prize herd of cows.

  As they drove through the farm gate a man stumped towards them. He looked to be in his sixties, strong with a broad pair of shoulders.

  Joanna got out of the car. ‘Mr Dudson?’ She displayed her ID card.

  ‘Aah,’ he said with satisfaction, taking it in. ‘I wondered if you’d get around to me. I’ve been half expecting you. Come in,’ he said. ‘My housekeeper, Mandy, will make us a brew.’

  Inside, the farmhouse kitchen was all that it should be. Quarry tiles, a huge Aga, a comfortable clutter of papers and magazines – Farmers’ Weekly, mainly – and the housekeeper, complete with flowered apron. She was young and thin, in her forties, wearing no make-up and a careworn expression. Dudson addressed her with careless goading, ‘Get on with it, girl. Put kettle on, will you, the inspector and her sergeant will want a cup of tea.’

  Without a word, Mandy moved the kettle over to the hotplate, went through the motions and brewed up. Her shoulders remained bent. She looked humourless – a victim herself.

  Dudson removed his wellies, plonked himself down on a chair and stretched his feet out, displaying thick, blue, woollen socks with a neat darn over his right big toe. ‘Let me guess,’ he said, fixing Joanna with a piercing stare of very pale blue eyes. ‘You’re curious about my neighbour’s murder, aren’t you?’ Surprisingly, there was a touch of humour in his face. Without waiting for an answer he continued, leaning suddenly forward. ‘How much do you know, Inspector? How much do you really know?’

  She met his gaze without flinching and wondered why she felt a certain warmth towards this man who had to be, after all, a suspect in a murder case. ‘We believe you were once – friendly – with Mrs Grimshaw, years ago.’

  Dudson stared at the Aga. ‘Aye,’ he said.

  Joanna waited.

  ‘Do you know what happened to her?’

  With an effort, Dudson lifted his head. ‘Put it like this, Inspector,’ he said, ‘I had my suspicions.’ He stared at her.

  ‘Elaborate.’

  ‘He told me she’d gone away. I couldn’t believe that she would have gone without a word to me. It wouldn’t have been like her.’

  ‘Were you having an affair with her?’

  Again that touch of humour lightened Dudson’s eyes. ‘That’s between me and—’ he began, but Joanna forestalled him.

  ‘Jakob Grimshaw left a confession that he’d killed his wife and fed her to his pigs,’ she said brutally. ‘Anything you can say that might shed light on this crime might point the way to the murder we are currently investigating.’

  Dudson was quiet, his face suddenly white and grave. ‘So that’s what happened to her,’ he said. ‘Poor thing.’ He looked up, his eyes flaming. ‘Then I’m not sorry Grimshaw met with the end he did.’

  Joanna watched him. ‘And after Mrs Grimshaw disappeared, how did it affect your relationship with Mr Grimshaw?’

  Again that touch of humour softened his face. ‘Strained,’ he said.

  Again Joanna waited. Dudson was not a stupid man. He must know what was in her mind.

  But stubbornly he dropped his head to stare at the floor and smiled. It was a sentimental smile, as though he saw there some pretty memory. Of lambs in fields and a woman in a sprigged dress?

  He kept smiling. Then shook his head and answered the question she had not even asked. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I did not kill him.’

  Korpanski spoke up. ‘When did you last see him?’

  Dudson shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Absolutely no idea.’

  ‘Think, Mr Dudson.’

  Obediently, he did think for a moment. ‘A couple of weeks ago, I suppose.’

  Mike spoke up. ‘You can’t be more specific than that?’

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant, no.’ Dudson said firmly.

  ‘T
he land he had for sale…’ Joanna was picking her way delicately through the questions.

  Dudson’s answering gaze was shrewd. ‘He was playing a dangerous game,’ he said. ‘A very dangerous game. Playin’ people off against each other.’ There was a flash in the blue eyes. ‘He didn’t understand city people, Inspector,’ he looked up with a smile, ‘and Sergeant. He simply didn’t understand the way their minds work. He didn’t realise how greedy they could be. Greedy, vindictive and proud. I warned him. I told him he was teasing a crazy bull but he thought he was smart. I knew he wasn’t.’ A pause. ‘And it seems I was right.’

  ‘So you think Mr Grimshaw was killed by one of his neighbours because of the land deal.’

  There was a flash of spirit in the farmer’s face. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I do.’

  They left soon afterwards, having drunk Mandy’s excellent tea. Made, Joanna noticed with approval, in a teapot, strained and served in china cups with saucers. Impressive for a farmer. She began to see what Judy Wilkinson had meant.

  ‘So what do you make of him, Mike?’ Joanna asked when they were safely outside, striding back towards their car.

  ‘I think,’ Korpanski said slowly, ‘that Mr Dudson would have been perfectly capable of murdering Jakob Grimshaw if he had found out what Grimshaw had done with his wife.’

  Joanna looked at him. ‘I agree,’ she said. ‘Under the cultured veneer there was a certain steeliness about him, wasn’t there?’

  Korpanski nodded and they opened the car doors.

  As they drove past the entrance to the Prospect Farm Estate they saw Faria Probert turn into her drive in a People Carrier. On impulse, Joanna turned the car in and followed the belly dancer.

  They watched her coax the children out of the car.

  She was an exotic-looking woman with fine, huge, heavy breasts and ample hips. Even as she walked up towards her door, seeming not to notice the police car sliding in behind her, her gait was rhythmic, swaying and, even to Joanna’s critically female eye, sexy. She was wearing loose olive green cargo pants slung around her hips and a pink shirt unbuttoned to reveal a deep, fleshy cleavage.

  They had followed her to the door before she suddenly swung round and addressed Korpanski. ‘Can I help you?’

  Joanna loved it when Korpanski was caught on the hop. ‘Umm.’ He looked at Joanna for a cue.

  She produced her ID card. ‘Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy, Leek Police, Mrs Probert.’

  Faria’s thickly lipsticked mouth dropped open. She raised large dark eyes to Joanna.

  ‘It’s about your neighbour, Mr Jakob Grimshaw.’

  Faria nodded. Her eyes, heavily made-up with black lines and treacly mascara, were very expressive. She looked both lugubrious and apprehensive.

  Skilfully, she ushered the children into the house. ‘Won’t you come in?’

  They followed her into a neat house. No sign here of her Bohemian hobby. It was plain, a few children’s toys scattered in the conservatory beyond the sitting room, the pictures, rather disappointingly, of spring flowers and sheep grazing in the snow. ‘Can we just go over the events of Monday the 10th of September?’

  Faria settled down on the sofa opposite and fixed her eyes on Korpanski, who, Joanna noted, was thoroughly enjoying the attention. She’d worried about Mike lately. He’d lost some of his vigour. He’d always been a bit of a flirt, particularly with the female junior officers. Korpanski was hugely susceptible to the charms of women. But since her return he’d been subdued. It was good to see the sweat break out on the back of his neck as Faria Probert dropped her heavy eyelashes at him. Joanna smothered a grin. Faria was an expert at flirting. She pulled herself into line, cleared her throat.

  ‘Mrs Probert,’ she began, ‘I want to know exactly what you heard on that morning. You were home and the estate was quiet. Hardly anyone else was here.’

  With difficulty, Faria peeled her eyes from the burly detective sergeant and switched her gaze to Joanna.

  ‘I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself,’ she said. ‘It was a quiet morning.’

  Joanna interrupted. ‘Don’t you normally work on a Monday?’

  ‘Not until the evening,’ Faria said severely. ‘You don’t get many takers for a belly-dancing lesson on a Monday morning. Anyway,’ she resumed, ‘it was really quiet round here that morning.’

  ‘Because the dog wasn’t barking?’ Joanna hated to put words into the woman’s mouth but these tiny details were important.

  Faria was halted in her tracks. ‘Possibly,’ she said slowly. ‘I only really noticed how quiet it was. I didn’t think why it was so quiet. Maybe you’re right. The dog wasn’t making a noise.’ She smiled, showing an impressive set of large, white teeth.

  ‘About eleven,’ she said. ‘I can’t be absolutely precise about the time,’ she said with annoyance. ‘I’ve got five kids, you know. And I have my keep fit regime. I don’t spend all day staring at the clock.’

  Joanna simply nodded. She couldn’t be bothered to get into a discussion about clock-watching with this woman. She simply wanted facts. Pure, clear facts. ‘Go on,’ she prompted tersely, adding a ‘please’ as encouragement.

  ‘Well, that was it,’ Faria said. ‘Nothing more. I heard an almighty clatter and then nothing. I didn’t think anything of it. There are often noises coming from the direction of the farm. Tractors, animals, machinery. I only really recalled it when your police officers told us what had happened and started asking questions. But Mrs Barnes heard it too, so I can’t have imagined it.’

  She was definitely on the defensive, Joanna mused, and decided to step over the line a bit.

  ‘How well do you know your neighbours?’

  Faria’s eyes narrowed. ‘Fairly well.’

  ‘Steven Weston, for instance?’

  To her surprise, Faria coloured. Her eyes, dark muddy pools, fixed on Joanna’s face. She was debating whether to speak.

  Joanna waited.

  ‘Steven Weston,’ Faria began slowly, ‘was a very lonely man.’

  ‘A lonely married man?’ Joanna queried.

  ‘It does happen, you know. His wife was so busy defending animal rights and feeding cats that she had no time left over for her husband. Ask her,’ she said defiantly. ‘Ask her if her husband would like children. She doesn’t even know – or care. Talk about taking someone for granted. Such women,’ she said haughtily, ‘don’t deserve husbands.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Joanna said cautiously, ‘but they were still married.’

  Faria nodded, in her dark eyes a gleam of mischief. ‘Do you know what the attraction was here?’

  Both Joanna and Mike shook their heads.

  ‘Not me. Not rampant sex on the settee. It was children. Toys. Clutter. Life. Young life,’ Faria said. She threw back her head and laughed, allowing Joanna to admire her dentition. ‘That’s what he wanted. He loved being here, on the floor, surrounded by children, Lego, Fisher Price. Some men are essentially paternal.’ Her eyes were on Joanna and she flushed. It was as though Faria could see right inside Matthew Levin’s soul. Superstitiously, Joanna touched the black pearl on her finger.

  Feeling a bit sheepish, the two officers left soon after.

  They tried the Barnes’s house but there was no answer. There were no cars in the drive and number 9 held the look of an empty house.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tuesday, 25th September

  It was a sunny morning. Joanna sensed it even before she opened her eyes. There was a brightness in the bedroom that danced along the wall. She watched it for a moment then flung back the duvet, touching Matthew’s shoulder. ‘I’ll make the coffee,’ she murmured into his ear. ‘It’s a heavenly morning.’

  Matthew grunted but when she returned with the two mugs of strong Nescafé he sat up and reached out for it. ‘So what makes you so full of beans this morning, Jo?’

  She ruffled his hair then pressed her lips to it. She loved its colour, damp sand, particularly when it was early-morning-tousl
ed. ‘Optimism,’ she said, relishing the shot of caffeine pumping energy into her. ‘I feel I’m about to make a breakthrough. That and the sunshine,’ she mused, ‘and the thought of cycling across the moorland into work.’

  ‘I only hope you’re right,’ he said, grinning at her. ‘For a simple murder you seem to be taking your time arresting anyone.’

  She gave him a mock punch. ‘Cheeky,’ she said.

  They sat companionably together, drinking their coffee, then with a light kiss Joanna disappeared into the bathroom, showered and put on her cycling shorts and top, slipping on the engagement ring last of all. Then, carefully, she folded a skirt and blouse into a rucksack together with some shoes. Downstairs for apple and mango juice and a bowl of Special K, then she wheeled her bike around to the front.

  Matthew was still munching his toast, watching her critically through the open window. ‘Be careful,’ he mouthed.

  She waved at him. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’ She forced herself to smile. ‘When did you say Eloise is coming?’ Try as she might she couldn’t erase the tightness from her voice.

  He lent right out through the window to answer. ‘Not until tomorrow afternoon.’ He paused while he eyed her shrewdly. ‘I thought I’d cook,’ he said. ‘Maybe some pasta. A lasagne or something.’

  ‘Whatever,’ she said, buckled her helmet on and sped off.

  Waterfall was a pretty village, still with its own pub – smoke-free now but the beams testified to years of nicotine exposure. The government might be able to bring in new legislation but the scent of nicotine would probably remain for ever. She cycled along the flat road, taking the ridge in her stride, feeling the sudden drop in temperature as she climbed, then descending into the valley and the town of Leek, recognisable by the spire of St Edwards and the green dome of the Nicholson Institute piercing the early morning mist.