Requiem for a Dealer

by Jo Bannister

  ‘You can park right here on the Promenade. Do you want to get it now? I’ll can finish this later …’

  Ally shook her head again. ‘I don’t need any help. I’ll walk up Fisher Hill, pack some stuff and be back in an hour.’

  ‘OK.’

  You can’t arrest a man for having a funny name. In an increasingly global village it’s dangerous to make assumptions about people based on the vagaries of their birth. Coincidences happen all the time, and in all probability it was nothing more than coincidence that linked Dieter Townes with his riding school to a multi-national trade in drugs because of the involvement of a large animal tranquillizer manufactured in Germany.

  But Deacon didn’t get to be a Detective Superintendent by assuming people were innocent until proved otherwise. He got there by being a nasty suspicious bastard who took nothing on trust and assumed everyone was up to something, even if some people had yet to be caught.

  The first rule of police interrogation – no, the second rule: the first is to call it making enquiries – is not to ask anyone a question until you’ve some idea what the answer should be. Before Deacon spoke to Dieter Townes he wanted to speak to someone about Dieter Townes.

  Everyone kept telling him what a small world this was. Now, with questions to ask about Townes, Alison Barker and Johnny Windham, seemed a good time to put that to the test. Taking DC Meadows, he drove out to the yard outside Peyton Parvo to see if Mary Walbrook could help him understand how all these people fitted together; and if she could, whether she would.

  Confirmation of one point he got very quickly, before he’d even got out of the car. It was certainly a small world. A lorry in the red-and-white livery of Windham Transport was parked in the yard.

  He had one advantage and he played it. Neither Mary Walbrook nor Johnny Windham had any reason to recognise the police officers. They stayed in the car, waiting to see what would happen in the space before they had to declare themselves.

  But all that happened was that a man came out of an outbuilding, walked to the lorry and climbed up. A woman watched from the doorway and waved as he drove off. Then she turned her attention to the car. ‘Can I help you? I’m Mary Walbrook.’

  ‘Detective Superintendent Deacon,’ he replied, producing his warrant card, ‘and Detective Constable Meadows. Yes, I hope you can. In fact, you already have. I was going to ask if you’d seen anything of Mr Windham recently, and I see you have.’

  Mary Walbrook nodded. ‘Mr Windham and I had some business to discuss. In fact I’ll be seeing rather more of him in the future. He’s going to start carrying my horses again.’

  Deacon considered. ‘You don’t share Alison’s view, then, that Windham was to blame for your problems.’

  Mary gave a compact shrug. ‘I’m fond of Alison, Superintendent, I care what happens to her, but I don’t share her view of a number of things. Windham’s role in our difficulties is one of them. Yes, it’s possible he brought in a virus – you move stock around, that’s something you risk. I don’t think it happened because he was careless. I think we were unlucky, but more than that we hadn’t taken steps to protect ourselves against a run of bad luck. We should have had a much bigger buffer against disasters. I shan’t make that mistake again.’

  Deacon looked around the yard, took in the number of doors that had horses’ heads peering over them, the evidence of recent repairs and repainting – all signs of a business on the way back. ‘You’ve got things ticking over again, then?’

  She was pleased he’d noticed. ‘It was uphill work for a while, but once I persuaded a couple of people to come back the word spread and we started seeing a few more old faces. We haven’t anywhere near the turnover we once had, but we’re in profit again. I think the business is safe.’

  ‘Safe enough to use Mr Windham again.’

  Mary frowned. ‘I told you, Windham was only the problem in Ally’s mind. We talked through everything that had happened, he offered me a good deal in recognition of the difficulties we’ve had and I took it. Alison won’t be happy. But this is my yard now. She has a financial interest but not a controlling one. What she inherited on the death of her father was a share in an empty yard with massive debts. I don’t want to sound mercenary, but I turned that around and I intend to reap the benefits.’

  Whatever she wanted, she did sound mercenary. But Deacon couldn’t fault her logic. If the work had been hers and the risks had been hers, she was entitled to the rewards. ‘Before all this started – when Stanley Barker was alive, before your run of bad luck – how well did Alison know Johnny Windham?’

  Mary wasn’t sure what he meant. ‘She’s known him most of her life. This is …’

  ‘A small world,’ finished Deacon. ‘Yes, I know. And he was transporting horses for you. Was that all?’

  ‘You mean, were they ever a number?’ There was a certain flatness to her voice that made Deacon think Brodie had guessed right. ‘Well – not really. As a teenager, Ally had a crush on him. Johnny used to flirt with her. She thought it meant something, he didn’t. He was amused and maybe a little flattered. They went out a few times as part of a crowd, after shows and things. I think only a teenage girl would have thought it was anything serious.’

  ‘Could she have had a grudge against him because it never went anywhere?’

  Mary pursed her lips. ‘It’s possible. She seemed to shake it off and move onto other things, but maybe she felt he’d treated her badly. She wouldn’t have said anything if she did: not to me, not to her father. Ally doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve. There are two sorts of girls, Superintendent: one sort spends every spare minute thinking about boys, the other spends every spare minute thinking about horses. Ally’s the second sort. I was myself. It doesn’t mean we’re not interested in men, just that they have to wait until the horses are done.’

  ‘Could that explain why she was so determined to blame him for your problems?’ asked Meadows. ‘Why you saw a disastrous run of bad luck and she saw a conspiracy?’

  Mary Walbrook nodded. ‘It might.’

  ‘Just for the record,’ wondered Deacon, ‘how did Stanley Barker see it? Did he blame Windham? He stopped using him, didn’t he?’

  ‘He did.’ She was working out how to put this. ‘To be honest, Superintendent, Stanley blamed everyone but himself. It was Windham’s fault, he wasn’t looking after the horses in transit. It was the vendors’ fault, they were sending sick animals. It was the vet’s fault for passing them fit to travel when they weren’t. At regular intervals it was my fault – I was buying horses that any fool could see were sickly. I suggested he do the next buying trip himself, see if he did any better. That didn’t suit him either. I was trying to get him off the yard so …oh, I can’t even remember why it was I was supposed to want shot of him.’

  She gave a sad little smile. ‘He was going downhill even faster than the business. He was drinking way too much. I don’t mean bad hangovers: I mean alcoholic poisoning. I tried to shield Ally from the worst of it, but maybe that was a mistake. What finally happened to him didn’t surprise me in the least, but it knocked her sideways. Five days earlier she’d caught Stanley and Windham arguing in the yard. By all accounts it got personal and it got nasty. When Stanley died, Alison was convinced that was why. Not suicide, not an accident – murder. But no one else thought so.’

  Which accorded pretty much with the picture Deacon had put together. He drew a mental line under it and nodded. ‘Actually, Miss Walbrook, there was something else I wanted to ask you. Do you know a man called Dieter Townes?’

  ‘Townes.’ The name seemed to mean something to her; after a moment she got it. ‘He runs that little riding school at Cheyne Warren.’

  ‘Appletree Farm. That’s right.’

  ‘Whatever can the police want with a man who gives riding lessons to under-tens? Oh – unless …’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ Deacon said quickly. ‘Only, it’s an unusual name. Is he German, do you know?’

  ‘I
think his mother is,’ said Mary. ‘The way I heard it, his father was stationed in West Germany while he was in the army and he married a local girl.’

  ‘So he may have family there,’ said Deacon. ‘Cousins and so on.’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Mary Wolbrook coolly.

  ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I do know him. I’ve met him a time or two. We have some acquaintances in common. That’s all.’

  ‘You’ve never done business with him?’

  Mary laughed out loud. ‘I’m sorry, Superintendent, I don’t mean to be rude. But the horses we handle have nothing in common with the animated hearth-rugs he uses. They’re the same species. But you’d need to be an expert to know that.’

  She hadn’t told him much, but it gave him somewhere to start with Townes. Maybe the man had nothing whatever to do with the tranquillizer those wags at Forensics called Horsefeathers. But if he still had family in Germany, and if he did any visiting, and if it turned out his cousins had horses too, it was time Deacon gave Dieter Townes the opportunity to convince him of his innocence.

  He and Meadows were back in the car, ready to leave, when a spit of stones and the squeal of dodgy suspension announced the arrival of a clapped-out hatchback of a type rarely encountered since the introduction of the MOT. It skidded to a halt and Alison Barker stumbled out, flushed with anger.

  If she saw that Mary had visitors she didn’t care. Distress twisted her mouth in awkward and ugly ways and her voice was thick. ‘I saw him in the lane. What was he doing here? Tell me you sent him away. Mary, tell me you sent him away!’ Her hands gripped the older woman’s arms, shaking her.

  Mary Walbrook broke her friend’s grasp and her voice was firm. ‘I wanted to tell you before you found out. But as you see, we’ve only just sorted it out. I was going to call you tonight.’

  ‘Sorted what out?’ But Deacon could see that she knew. She just couldn’t believe it. Her whole body was rigid with shock.

  ‘Ally, I have a lot of horses to be collected and delivered. Johnny did a good job for us for years, and now he’s made me a very good offer. I can’t afford to turn it down.’

  ‘He tried to kill me!’ The howl of anguish ripped straight from her heart.

  Mary shook her head. ‘I know you believe that, Ally, but it isn’t true. And I wish I could afford to take your part, right or wrong, but I can’t. I need this deal. I’ve told him I’ll take it.’

  Alison Barker backed up a couple of steps. Her body bent like a bow with the bitter force of her fury. ‘I own part of this business. I won’t let you do it. My father threw that man off the yard, and Johnny killed him because of it. Now he’s tried to kill me too. And all that matters to you is saving a bit of money! I won’t have it. Dad started this business, he was the senior partner. I’m his heir. You need my approval to make any kind of arrangement with Johnny Windham. And guess what? You’re not going to get it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ally,’ Mary Walbrook said quietly, you’re mistaken. I don’t need your approval. The decision has already been made.’

  The sense of betrayal is an emotion, an abstract, easy to describe but impossible to depict. Except that it was made manifest in Alison Barker’s eyes. For the record, it looks like broken crystal. For a moment she couldn’t find a voice to express it. When she did, all she could manage before she ran back to her ancient car and drove away was: ‘It’s the worst decision of your entire life. And it could be the last.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Driving back from Peyton Parvo Deacon and Meadows considered, separately and together, what they’d heard. Specifically, whether it constituted a threat; and if so, whether it had been the sort of empty threat that angry people terminate conversations with, or the sort that subsequent inquiries hold to have been sufficiently significant and credible that a responsible officer would have acted on it.

  Deacon didn’t do his job with one eye on posterity – if he made mistakes they were honest ones and he was ready to answer for them. But the reality is, if something goes badly wrong somebody’s head is going to roll. If something goes disastrously wrong – and it would count if one woman threatened another in front of two police officers, they decided it was just girl talk, and someone ended up dead – one of the privileges of rank is to be first to the chopping-block.

  ‘I’m not sure it was a threat at all,’ ventured Meadows. ‘I think it was a warning. Alison Barker thinks Johnny Windham is a dangerous man who tried to shut her up by drugging her food. Now she finds out her friend is doing business with him again. She’s alarmed – frightened for Mary’s safety.’

  Deacon wasn’t entirely convinced. ‘I thought she was more angry than alarmed. She thought Mary was letting her down.’

  Jill Meadows had heard that too. ‘Do you think Mary Walbrook is in any danger? From either of them?’

  Deacon considered. ‘She didn’t think so, did she? She didn’t ask us for help of any kind. I don’t think we have reasonable grounds to arrest Alison, and I don’t think Mary would want us to even if we offered.’

  ‘So what do we do about it, sir?’

  ‘We remember it, constable,’ Deacon said pontifically. ‘That’s what we do.’

  From Peyton Parvo they headed across the Three Downs to Cheyne Warren. Meadows was thinking. ‘There’s something I don’t understand, sir.’

  ‘Only one thing?’ Deacon was impressed. ‘Perhaps you should be the superintendent.’

  Detective Constable Meadows fully intended to be but thought it wiser not to say so. ‘Sorry – not the case. Why is it Chain Down’ – she spelled it out – ‘but Cheyne Warren?’

  ‘For the same reason it’s Mennor Down but Manor Farm, and actually both of them were named after the standing stone – the menhir – on the top. For the same reason that gorge’ – he pointed out of the driver’s window, to where the roadside verge disappeared in forty metres of drop onto chalk boulders – ‘is Ship Coomb. You don’t really think they ever got ships up that little stream? Somebody lost some sheep down it once. But the rubes down here were illiterate until they punched through the road from London.’

  ‘The Roman road?’

  ‘The M23,’ said Deacon sourly.

  When he saw Dieter Townes’ ponies Deacon understood Mary Walbrook’s amusement. There wasn’t one of them worth the trouble of importing. If he’d bought them at all it was from a rag-and-bone man. He might have been paid to take them away.

  Then he remembered that one of these ponies – and even if it was the prettiest that wasn’t saying much – was the dearest thing to Paddy Farrell’s heart after her mother and Howard the stuffed dragon. She’d have been riding it this morning; half a dozen other little girls would be on it during the course of the day. Every one of these placid little beasts was the means of separating middle-class families from their hard-earned wealth. At that thought both the ponies and their owner went up in his estimation.

  Townes was teaching when they arrived. Deacon called him over, and the flash of his warrant card made Townes first frown and then call over a teenager who was working in the corner of the yard. ‘Keep an eye on this lot for me. Get them doing Round The World. Anyone who falls off gets put back on. Anyone who falls off twice gets 10p and put back on.’

  The girl ran a critical eye over his class. ‘They’ll make more money out of you than you do out of them.’

  ‘Just do it.’ He walked back to where Deacon and Meadows were waiting. ‘Sorry about that, but I can’t just abandon them. What’s this about?’

  It was always a balancing act, deciding how much to say. Of course, if Townes was involved in smuggling drugs in from Europe he knew what it was about, and if he wasn’t, telling him wouldn’t matter. ‘We’re talking to people involved in the horse trade in this area about the possibility that illegal substances are being smuggled across the Channel in horse transporters.’

  Townes wasn’t a fool: he didn’t throw his hands up in horror at the ve
ry idea. He gave it some thought. ‘It wouldn’t be difficult. For obvious reasons, a horse lorry is a big, sturdy vehicle. A lot of them are built with double floors as a safety measure. It wouldn’t be rocket science to create a cavity between those floors big enough to smuggle in almost anything you wanted. And to find out you’d need to do a proper search – unload the horses, remove the partitions, muck out the box, hose the floor, lift the rubber matting and then start looking for a way into the floor itself. What I’m saying is, you couldn’t tell anything by just looking and tapping with a screwdriver.’ When he realised he had more of their undivided attention than was strictly desirable he shut up.

  ‘My goodness, Mr Townes,’ said Deacon, ‘you have given this some thought.’

  Townes forced an embarrassed little chuckle. ‘Not really. It’s kind of obvious. Anyone who’s travelled across borders with a horse-box knows that Customs would rather search a coachload of deaf pensioners than start on a trailer with two ponies in it. If that mattered to you, it would be worth bearing in mind.’

  Deacon let his gaze travel back to the sand school, where half a dozen small children were engaged in an exercise that, deliberately or otherwise, had resulted in several of them sitting back-to-front. The ponies either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. ‘Find yourself crossing a lot of borders, do you, Mr Townes?’

  ‘With that lot, no,’ said Townes. ‘But I worked as a groom in a number of competition yards and we spent half of every year travelling round Europe. If you want to know if I ever smuggled anything myself, the answer is no. The fact remains, it wouldn’t be difficult.’

  ‘No,’ nodded Deacon. ‘Where did you get to, then?’

  ‘All round,’ said Townes. ‘France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Germany …’

  ‘Ah. Visiting the family.’

  Townes had thought the questioning was essentially over, they were making conversation now. He blinked as he realised his mistake. ‘That’s right, my mother’s from Germany. I have cousins in Hamburg. And yes, when we took the eventers to Luneburg Heath I paid them a visit. About eight years ago, and I haven’t seen them since. Superintendent Deacon, I don’t see how this is going to help you.’