Grave Stones

by Priscilla Masters

  She showered, changed into the neat black skirt and scarlet blouse, slipped her feet into the black leather court shoes, ran a comb through her hair to bring it back to life, slicked some lip-gloss along her mouth and was at her desk by the time Korpanski wandered in. ‘Morning, Mike,’ she said.

  He grinned at her and she knew he, too, was in buoyant mood. ‘You didn’t ride in, did you, Jo?’

  ‘Certainly did. It woke my brain up. Mike,’ she said tentatively, ‘I have a feeling that the noise that Hilary Barnes, Faria Probert and possibly Teresa Parnell heard was not the sound of Jakob Grimshaw struggling with his killer but something else.’

  He looked up. ‘I wondered that myself,’ he said. ‘Any idea what?’

  ‘Not yet but we should visit Hilary Barnes again and then comb through the farmyard to take a better look. We’ve missed something.’ She frowned. ‘Maybe because we didn’t know what we were looking for. But we do now.’ She stood up. ‘Come on, Mike,’ she said. ‘Time to get a move on.’

  He started grumbling but really she knew he enjoyed the way she goaded him, teased him, pulled him along. It was one of the many reasons they worked so well together.

  Ten minutes later they were speeding along the Ashbourne road towards the Prospect Farm Estate. As they turned in, Joanna reflected that they were certainly attractive houses, architect designed, each one slightly different from the rest. Some had integral garages, others pillared porticos. They all had individually designed windows, bow-fronted, sash or casement. A testament to modern, imaginative architecture. They pulled up outside number 9 and were gratified when Hilary Barnes opened the door, looking concerned. Joanna reassured her with a quick smile. ‘It’s OK, Mrs Barnes,’ she said. ‘I just want to revise your statement about the noise you heard.’

  As before, Joanna was conscious of the woman’s intelligence and force of character.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I’ll make some coffee. I was ready for a cup myself.’

  They followed her into the kitchen – clean, white tiled – and watched her boil the kettle and fill a cafetière. As she poured three mugs of coffee and produced a jug of milk, she turned, frowning. ‘I’ve thought a lot about that,’ she said. ‘There were all sorts of sounds. But in the background I heard something metallic, sharp and very loud. A clatter. I have wondered what exactly it was. But I can’t think of anything that would make…’ Her eyes wandered around her kitchen. ‘The only thing I can liken it to is if you dropped a load of saucepan lids.’ Her gaze landed on the shelf of pans over her cooker. ‘Do you see what I mean?’ she asked dubiously.

  Joanna nodded, eyed Korpanski and smiled. She was beginning to see a picture. One of a clever and devious mind. Practised at deceiving.

  It had all been set up – a diversion to provide someone with an alibi. When the two women had heard the noise, Jakob Grimshaw had already been dead – possibly for nearly two days.

  Joanna was beginning to feel pleased with herself. She wasn’t falling for that one.

  She eyed the woman across the table. ‘Mrs Barnes,’ she said slowly, ‘I want you to think about the Sunday. Probably the afternoon. Did you notice any comings and goings at the farm?’

  The woman was silent for a minute or two, her face screwed up in concentration. She pressed her fingers to her forehead. ‘I did hear a car,’ she said. ‘Some time in the evening. It was a dull day,’ she said. ‘I’d been watching television. I think it was around seven or eight o’clock. Maybe even later.’ She raised her index finger in a gesture of excitement. ‘I remember now. It skidded away. I remember hearing the gravel spit and thinking someone was in a tearing hurry.’ She smiled, pleased with herself. ‘I wonder if this will help you, Inspector,’ she commented curiously.

  Joanna felt smug. It fitted in with the theory she was forming. ‘I rather think it will,’ she said.

  Today, in the dingy weather, there was something desolate about Prospect Farm. Deserted of its animals and its farmer, it looked even more bleak and uncared for than when they had first visited. The neglect was plain to see: the peeling paintwork, cracked windows, weeds growing through cracks in the concrete. Even the tree in the centre looked droopy and dejected. It looked like a place of brooding and years of sadness, filled with foreboding. As indeed it was.

  Joanna slipped on her wellies and she and Korpanski climbed out of the car. The stillness was so thick and heavy they could have sliced it through with a knife. It felt as though the entire place was whispering about its years of secrets and neglect, playing the telltale on Jakob. Joanna stepped forward gingerly.

  ‘We won’t bother with the farmhouse itself,’ she said. ‘I don’t think we’ll find anything in there. I want to concentrate on the outside.’

  Korpanski nodded. ‘Call me a wimp, Jo,’ he said, looking around him, ‘but I have a distinctly uncomfortable feeling here, as though someone is watching us.’

  As though in response, a crow, perched on the telegraph pole nearby, gave a loud croak and flapped away. It seemed a bird of ill omen.

  Joanna looked around her. ‘Maybe the best thing will be if this place is pulled down and built over. I don’t believe in houses having a bad vibe but this one is giving me the heebie-jeebies.’ She stepped towards the barn. ‘Come on, Mike,’ she said, ‘let’s get on with it and get back to the station.’

  They rounded the corner of the building and faced the two huge doors where the dead cattle had been discovered. Korpanski heaved one open with his meaty shoulder and they stepped inside.

  The interior was dingy with an odd, stale-hay smell. There was the reek of death mingled in with the scent of manure. It was a disturbing smell. Pungent and strong.

  Joanna touched Korpanski’s arm. ‘Leave the door open, Mike,’ she said, ‘we need the light.’

  He wheeled around and she knew he wasn’t fooled. There was something claustrophobic about the shed where the animals had suffered and died, and Joanna, sensitive to atmosphere, was spooked.

  For once Korpanski had the upper hand. ‘Hey, Jo,’ he said.

  She made a face back at him then looked up towards the hay loft. ‘What’s that?’

  It was a piece of rope, suspended from the high ceiling, moving ever so slightly in the draught from the open door. It looked like a hangman’s noose.

  The hayloft was reached by a ladder. Joanna ascended a couple of steps to peer at the bales of hay recently stacked by a farmer preparing for a winter he would not now see. There was something poignant about the sight – all that harvesting for nothing and no one to enjoy it. Even the animals who would have eaten it were dead. Joanna wondered what would happen to the sheep that had survived the slaughter and its aftermath, whether the neighbour, Dudson, would get lucky. Or would the hard-nosed Judy drive a tough bargain once the settlement of her father’s estate was complete and the keys handed to her? Joanna glanced again at the old-fashioned, oblong bales of hay, fastened with orange, nylon twine. Would they simply rot and wait for the building contractors to get rid of them? By burning or dumping?

  She had reflected this way before. After a murder there was always the unforeseen, untidy aftermath – the children left fatherless or motherless, the empty home, the bedroom shut off, the belongings treasured and never quite disposed of, the car that sat for years on the drive or in a garage.

  The thought invariably depressed her as much as the crime itself.

  She peered over the edge of the hayloft into the cattle stalls below. And then she saw it, something she had possibly noticed before but had not realised its significance. A stack of old-fashioned farm implements randomly scattered behind the barn doors.

  From the stiffening of Korpanski’s shoulders, she knew he had seen it too. ‘They would have made one hell of a bang, Jo,’ he said.

  She was shaking her head. ‘A clatter,’ she mused. ‘So that’s what they both heard. But,’ she said meaningfully, ‘maybe the noise the three women heard was not Grimshaw’s murder but these implements being knocked over
as someone entered the barn, which created a noise that would then be interpreted as a struggle. These things would not have been left there when Grimshaw was alive.’ She allowed herself a moment’s reflection before descending the ladder. Joanna went first; in a skirt, it was not advisable for Korpanski to be below her. ‘Animals can create all sorts of noises,’ she mused. ‘I’ve heard them myself. They can moan and scream, create the same sounds as a human in distress. Bump against a pile of farm implements. What they heard was the sound of the animals crashing around. Not Grimshaw. They probably didn’t mean to mislead us. They simply reported what they had heard. But the pile of stuff was set up to be pushed over by desperate animals, make a loud noise and divert us from the true time of death. Which is interesting.’ She leant against the door to the shippons and stared into nothing, slotting this new fragment of information into the whole.

  Finally she turned to Korpanski, who had been watching her silently. ‘I think Grimshaw died on the Sunday night,’ she said. ‘Roderick Beeston told me the cattle wouldn’t have lasted more than a day or two without water. They were in their death throes on Tuesday the 11th, not their master. He watered and fed them last on Sunday the 9th. Actually, Mike, what were the animals doing indoors in September anyway? Most farmers want to leave them outside as long as they can.’

  ‘I did ask about that,’ Mike said. ‘They were fairly new beef cattle. He hadn’t had them long. He was getting them tested by the vet before letting them out to graze.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ She was quiet for a while. Korpanski could be a very conventional police sergeant. ‘I’ve got an idea, Mike,’ she said. ‘Give me a day or two to think about it and I’ll discuss it with you.’ She hesitated. ‘I want to flush our killer out.’

  ‘You know who it is?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I think I know. That isn’t the problem, Mike. It’s proving it. We’ve not exactly had a lot of help from forensics. I doubt we’re going to get much more. The killer’s clothes would be nice. They make a lovely court case but our villain’s had enough time to dispose of those. Everyone who watches CSI knows about blood splashes etc. Our problem is going to be making a case stick.’ She glanced around the barn. ‘We’re still missing something,’ she said. ‘Something important but I don’t know what it is.’

  They walked outside, into a rare glimpse of sunshine before the sun scurried back behind a cloud, and Joanna knew she was going to have to convince Korpanski about this one. She eyed him slyly. ‘There is nothing worse than knowing your killer, by instinct and circumstance, and watching them wriggle through the net in court or, even worse, watching the CPS do the wriggling for them, is there, Mike?’

  Korpanski closed the barn door with a bang before turning and studying Joanna’s face. He was very sensitive to her moods and knew by the sparkle of mischief in her eyes that made them shine sapphire-blue and the curve of her wide mouth that she was doing what she loved most – plotting. ‘You’re up to something, ma’am,’ he said, using the title simply to rile her and let her know that he knew. She wasn’t fooling him.

  She waited until they were back in the car before she spoke again. ‘The nice thing about the new time of death is that it returns Judy back to the top of the list. Not only that but she fits the bill because she had an unbreakable alibi for the Tuesday morning, whereas I bet she has none for the Sunday evening. So it would have been well worth her setting up the diversionary tactic. We’ll start with her then comb through the other suspects’ alibis with our team. Concentrating now on the Sunday night. Refresh memories. Start again with a new time of death. Hah.’ She slammed the car door shut with a sharp sense of satisfaction, which in turn let Korpanski know they would have a restless few days ahead.

  When she called the briefing for six p.m. sharp, and he watched her striding to and fro in front of the whiteboard, fingers pointing to names, times, places, he could feel the entire team whipped into energy. Her old dynamism had returned, which left Korpanski with a worry. Who would inspire them if she vanished for months into maternity leave?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wednesday, 26th September

  Joanna awoke with the feeling that something unpleasant was going to happen today. Matthew lay still beside her but she knew he was awake. It’s hard to fake sleep successfully. There is something about the breathing that gives the masquerader away; it is a little less laboured, slightly faster and less regular than the respirations of someone who is truly, deeply asleep. She worried for a couple of minutes over the emotion of impending trouble.

  Then she remembered. Of course. Today Eloise would be arriving. When she returned from work, Matthew would be wearing the fixed, strained smile of a man who is only too well aware of the problem between his daughter and his partner. No. She almost sat up to protest. Fiancée. Next to the half-finished book, the pearl ring gazed back at her from her bedside cabinet, a faultless, beautiful witness to her altered state.

  Matthew decided to stir. He reached out for her and found her, pulled her to him, and she thought how very lucky she was, how much she loved him and how glad she was that in a couple of short months they would be man and wife. She snuggled in close to whisper in his ear. ‘Want a coffee?’

  He opened his eyes. ‘Mmm.’ Surely, surely, she thought, Eloise could not wreck this happiness, this contentment?

  Oh yes she could and frequently did, deliberately. Joanna slipped out of bed, wrestled her way into her thick white towelling dressing gown and padded downstairs, returning minutes later with a cafetiére steaming with a rich, beautiful aroma, a jug of milk and two large mugs. Carefully she poured out their coffee and they sat up in bed, awakening to the day with the help of caffeine.

  She broached the subject first. ‘What time is Eloise coming?’

  She could never quite get rid of the frostiness in her voice the second she spoke the name. And Matthew noticed it too. He frowned over the cup of coffee.

  ‘Her interview’s at two so she’ll drive straight there,’ he said stiffly. ‘Then she has a written paper. She should be finished by five-ish. We’ll be back here by six-ish, depending on the traffic.’

  He arched his eyebrows at her. ‘I suppose you’ll be late home?’

  If she struggled to keep hostile tones out of her voice, Matthew struggled to keep irony out of his.

  Perhaps now that she was to be his wife, things would improve? Briefly, she had thought they had while Matthew had been in the States and she had suffered a miscarriage; Eloise had sent her some flowers. But later, when she had been healthy enough to think about it more rationally, she had realised that the thought behind the flowers had been Matthew’s. Not Eloise’s. How could she ever have thought otherwise?

  But she must try and build bridges. ‘I will try and finish early, Matt,’ she promised before springing out of bed and making her way to the shower. She put on her cycling shorts and top and folded work clothes into her rucksack before going downstairs for some Special K and a large tumblerful of apple juice. She heard Matthew upstairs, showering briskly, humming. He was happy to be seeing his daughter, she reflected. She shouldn’t spoil it. But it wasn’t just her fault. If she was guarded, Eloise was at least equally so – if not more so. In the beginning, Joanna had excused the child. After all, her perception would be that it had been Joanna who had broken up her mother and father, split apart the family home. But as Eloise had grown up, Joanna had become increasingly impatient with the sharp-featured, razor-tongued teenager, seeing in her more than simply a physical resemblance to Jane, Matthew’s ex-wife.

  She finished her breakfast and went upstairs to clean her teeth just as Matthew was descending. He gave her a slightly wary look.

  ‘See you tonight then, Jo.’

  She set off to work, glad to escape the coolness that threatened whenever Eloise’s presence was felt.

  It did her good to be cycling across the moorland through a warm and misty fog, which blanketed the peaks and gave the area a mystical feel. She desc
ended the hill from Waterfall and joined the Ashbourne road, conscious of the threat of the traffic that raced past.

  She arrived at the station thirty-five minutes later, exhilarated and clear-minded. Full of determination. It had been this characteristic that had finally solved so many of their cases. A tenacious and stubborn optimism, a conviction that they would solve the case eventually. Joanna disliked failure. She had been brought up to despise failure by a father who thought of her as the son he had never had. As she locked her bike to the railings, her mouth had a firm set to it and her eyes smouldered.

  She had a second quick shower before changing into her work clothes – a black skirt and scarlet T-shirt, low-heeled shoes. Now she was ready for work.

  Surprisingly, Korpanski had beaten her to it. He grinned up at her, turning his gaze from the computer screen for no more than an instant before motioning towards two coffee cups already filled. ‘Just going through the statements, Jo,’ he said, ‘ready for the briefing.’

  She felt appreciative that he, too, was putting extra energy into the case.

  They drank companionably until nine fifteen, peering at the screen, searching for something that might lead them to a conclusion. But they found nothing they had not seen before, nothing that led them any nearer to Grimshaw’s murderer.

  And yet as Joanna and Mike made their way to the briefing room their tread was quick and light.

  The assembled officers seemed to have caught their optimism and looked alert and ready for action. Joanna and Mike exchanged glances. If only they could point them in the right direction. The only new information was that the handwriting on the note had been confirmed, surprisingly, by Gabriel Frankwell as being Grimshaw’s.

  She directed their energies into analysing the existing statements, checking and rechecking people’s whereabouts for the Sunday evening – early.

  They were almost through the briefing when a door opened at the back of the room. The desk sergeant, Alderley, stood in the doorway, hesitating. Korpanski walked the length of the room towards him. Listened to some whispered words. Joanna caught a look of complete consternation on her sergeant’s face. He looked at her, his mouth open, shoulders up in confusion. What on earth, she wondered, was Alderley telling him that had so imprinted on his face?