‘No, not them: their son. He would be about thirty now – David – and he went to the village school while both Audrey and I were teaching there …’ She paused here, looking back through time to the little boy who was always in trouble.
‘Come on! The suspense is killing me. What about him?’ asked Stevie with growing impatience.
‘He was always up to mischief: getting kept in at playtime, being made to clean the blackboard, and put up the chairs at the end of the day. It seemed he just couldn’t behave himself. And he was really behind all the other children: didn’t seem to get on with reading and writing at all, so he spent most of the day disrupting the other children from their learning and generally getting into trouble of one sort or another. A real nuisance he was.
‘He had a vivid enough imagination, and he was articulate enough. You should have heard the names he used to call Audrey. I’d just started working there, and I found out he’d been sneaking back into the school at playtime and stealing from the coats and blazers in the cloakroom: from satchels too, if there were any left unattended out there.
‘He was always the one who would initiate a food fight at lunch time, or who would start an actual fight. He was argumentative and defiant, and yet I felt that he wasn’t such a bad boy. I told Audrey that I thought there might be something wrong with him that might explain his behaviour, but she said he was just a wrong ’un who would end up a functionally illiterate adult, always in trouble for the rest of his life, and she washed her hands of him.’
‘And did he?’ Stevie interjected, trying to get to the point of the story.
‘Halfway through his senior schooling he was diagnosed as severely dyslexic. But by that time it was too late for him to change. He’d been branded by too many people as an unruly tearaway. He started getting into trouble with the police shortly after he left our school, and just went further on down that road.
‘Last month he was jailed for four years for his part in a string of burglaries, where he’d got off with a few months here and there before. I know it hit Margaret and Ernie hard, although they don’t talk about him. They’re contemporaries of mine, and I go in sometimes with Mummy and Daddy for a little drink, and I always have a little chat with her about when we were all young.
‘I’ve noticed that since he was sentenced, she’s rather been on the sauce, if you know what I mean.’ Harriet Findlater blushed as she used this slangy expression, but it sounded better than just declaring that the woman had become a serious drunk.
‘I don’t really go in there,’ Stevie replied, ‘so I wouldn’t know. If I go for a drink, which isn’t often, as I’m saving for my new leg, I go to the Temporary Sign. As I’m a barmaid there, I tend to know all the customers, so I feel at home, and don’t have to answer any questions about it.’
At this, Harriet gave a small titter of laughter. ‘I’m sorry, my dear, but what would outsiders think of us if they could listen in. Here we are talking about cold-blooded murder in the old News of the World style, then you say you’re saving up for a new leg.’
Stevie’s face crumpled in on itself, as she saw the ridiculousness of the situation, and they both laughed at the sheer absurdity of what life could throw at ordinary folk in the course of a casual conversation.
After a few seconds to regain their composure, Stevie had a question. ‘You don’t think she could have come over here in her cups and done Audrey, do you? I mean, it’s a pub, and they do food. There’s bound to have been several skewers lying around in the kitchen.’
‘If there are, and they’re the same sort as was used,’ here, Harriet shuddered. ‘then I’m sure the police will find out. It’s not for us to poke our noses in, now, is it?’
‘Definitely not!’
As Harriet got to her feet, she glanced out of the door and did a double take. ‘I’m sure I recognise that face through there, but not from recently,’ she muttered, more to herself than to Stevie.
‘What was that?’ Stevie asked, also rising, to continue the washing-up.
‘Oh, nothing. I just thought I recognised someone, that’s all. I’m probably mistaken,’ was the teacher’s final comment as she went back into the other room to say her good-byes.
Ruth Lockwood had done another turn selling the baked produce, and was at this moment talking to another of the holiday cottage residents who had kindly brought a plate of freshly baked fairy cakes with her to the sale, to boost stock. ‘That was a very kind thought of yours, Mrs Course,’ Ruth cooed, doing her ‘very bestest vicar’s little wifey-poos’ act.
‘It was no trouble at all, Mrs Lockwood, and do call me Caroline, as we shall meet again at church this Eastertide,’ the other woman suggested.
Ruth agreed – politely, of course – but made no such counter offer, merely handing her a bag containing her purchases and taking her money. ‘I do hope you enjoy your stay in our little village.’
‘No doubt I shall. I’m very interested in ecclesiastical architecture, and shall spend some time in your delightful little church admiring its internal adornments.’
As the woman walked off, Ruth gave a sigh of relief, followed, about ten seconds later, with a bellow of rage. ‘Saul Catchpole, don’t you dare pour the dregs of your tea into my cheese plant! You killed the last one I had stone dead after the cheese and wine party. Go and get a fresh cup if necessary, but no funny business with my green babies, or I’ll … I’ll … I’ll throw hymn books at you after service on Sunday,’ she concluded, laughing at her outrageous threat in defence of her houseplants.
Chapter Four
Good Friday, 1st April
I
The morning of Good Friday in the temporary police building in Market Darley was spent a little more seriously. Notes from the previous day were produced and collated, and there was the opportunity to check out the residents of the village that they had a note of, whether met in person the day before, or mentioned by one of those interviewed. The prime objective was, of course, to see if anyone in Shepford Stacey had a criminal record and, if so, for what.
‘I’ve got something on David Darling,’ Falconer announced, staring at his computer screen.
‘I haven’t found anything yet, sweetheart,’ answered Carmichael, drawing himself a darted glare of disapproval. ‘Sorry, sir, but it is April 1st.’
‘And don’t I know it, spending it with Blue-Bonce the pirate,’ muttered Harry Falconer to himself.’ Then, raising his voice to an audible level, he announced, ‘he’s inside at the moment on a four year stretch for a long list of burglaries, but he’s got loads of previous form, from shoplifting when he was a kid to TWOC-ing, demanding money with menaces, and simple nicking – years and years of criminal behaviour. A real bad apple, by the looks of it.’
‘But he can’t have anything to do with it, sir; not if he’s inside,’ Carmichael countered.
‘Agreed, sergeant; but what about his parents? They run the Ring o’ Bells pub at the crossroads. We’ll have a word with them when we go back. Maybe it’s a case of delayed revenge for something in his childhood. Run along and see if there’s anything about to go live, or any other irons in the fire concerning this cove. But there’s only so much we can learn from the past. Sometimes the present has a lot more bearing on things than we give it credit for, so we’ve got to give that a fair crack too.’
Carmichael left the office, happily humming ‘Happy Birthday’ and skipping like a child. Falconer admired his energy and enthusiasm, but feared for the ceiling of the floor below beneath his sergeant’s thumping great feet. It was no way for a detective sergeant of nearly thirty to act, but at least no one but he could see it; with which thought he realised that he was beginning to feel protective of his partner, and was surprised by this discovery.
Carmichael himself would have suffered no embarrassment had his actions been witnessed by others, but Falconer realised that he would have, if it had been him. It must be that inner child that his sergeant mentioned sometimes, bringing out the protective si
de of his nature. If he wasn’t careful he’d start viewing Carmichael like one of his cats, and then where would they be? In the asylum, that’s where, with a wind-up mouse and a bowl of Kitty Crunch.
The DS returned fairly promptly with the information that there had been some contact with Trading Standards and from a couple of other forces about criminal misrepresentation and fraud on the internet, and the name that kept coming up for these scams, although not directly, but constantly, was Seth Borrowdale.
Falconer checked the computer where a file was kept, alphabetically, for names never nailed, but known, and there he was – Seth Borrowdale Esquire, of The Vines, Cat Hanger Lane, Shepford Stacey. He’d sailed pretty close to the wind on more than one occasion, and had been in trouble as a juvenile, only escaping arrest and conviction as an adult by the skin of his teeth and the fact that any evidence to his detriment was either hearsay or circumstantial, neither of which would get the go-ahead from the CPS. He’d do a PNC check and see if they had him on the DNA Database. It was an outside chance, but one never knew.
‘I think we’ll have a little word with him, too,’ Falconer said decisively, which prompted Carmichael to enquire when they might be returning to said village.
‘Not this afternoon, I don’t think. It’ll be bad enough going round bothering people tomorrow, tomorrow being the weekend, but to turn up on a Bank Holiday, when there doesn’t seem any immediate risk of another killing – you understand that this is my gut feeling talking, Carmichael: I just don’t get that hint of a psychotic serial killer here, more an old grudge being settled – where was I? … turn up on a Bank – ah, yes. To turn up on a Bank Holiday would receive a grudging if not downright hostile reaction, which is something we could do without.
‘We’ll probably get a load of moans and complaints as it is, this being Easter weekend, but the sheer fact that there has been murder done should be a fairly strong mark in our favour.’
‘In that case, and because it’s my birthday, can I take you to see my Uncle Pete? It would be a sort of birthday treat for me – I haven’t seen him in ages – and I’d love to show you his dogs.’
‘What dogs?’ asked Falconer, his eyeballs straying briefly to the window to identify weak sunshine outside, and not even a hint of the stiff breeze that had been blowing the day before.
‘I mentioned him to you in that case we covered in the New Year. Do you remember? I told you he bred dogs; beautiful animals they are. He shows them sometimes.’ [1]
‘I do have a vague recollection, now that you come to mention it. It is a Bank Holiday after all; and your birthday. Come along Carmichael, I quite fancy looking at some well-bred dogs out in the fresh air.’ Whatever was coming over him, to actually volunteer to venture into bandit country, where all sorts of dirty and muddy traps awaited his dapper appearance?
‘Great, sir! I’ll just get my …’
‘You won’t need Mr Hat today, Sergeant. It’s a lovely mild day, unlike yesterday which was an absolute stinker. We can use my car, and I’ll even let you drive it.’
‘!’ (Carmichael was speechless.)
So it was true! He was out of his mind, and he had to drag his thoughts away from things like, ‘the lad deserves a treat’, and others in a similar vein. He really was a sucker for sunshine.
II
Carmichael, after a fairly hair-raising drive which had had Falconer stamping on an imaginary brake on the passenger side and holding on to his seat, while trying to look relaxed, drew up in a lane beside a ramshackle thatched cottage, with a nameplate outside bearing the legend Pups for sail – inquire within.
‘So this is your uncle Pete’s place is it?’ he asked, staring out of the car window at the overgrown garden, the mossy roof, and the clumps of grass growing out of the guttering.
‘This is it,’ Carmichael confirmed. ‘The dogs and kennels are out the back. He spends more time out there than he does in the house.’
Falconer could believe it. ‘It doesn’t look like any other dog breeders’ establishment that I’ve visited. I always used to go with Mama when we needed a new pup, and none of the places looked even remotely like this.’
‘I ’spect they were all poncy places, sir, meaning no disrespect. Uncle Pete’s is just a reg’lar country breeder’s establishment, like you’d find in many a village. Let’s get out of the car and go round the back. I know he’s in ’cos I can see his car over yonder,’ Carmichael suggested, pointing to a rusting heap in the shape of an old – a very old – Land Rover a little further down the lane, just inside a pair of drooping wooden gates. For a moment there, the sergeant had gone ‘native’ in his speech, and Falconer was a tad unsettled by this.
But he wasn’t going to pass judgement. They had gone out for a nice afternoon, and a nice afternoon they were going to have, come hell or high water. Gritting his teeth, he locked the car and followed Carmichael’s loping scarecrow figure to the rear of the property, still optimistic; trying to drown his doubts at birth.
He’d walked too far before he realised it. The weedy terrain stopped abruptly at the corner of the house, and the rear was a sea of mud and puddles from the autumn, winter, and spring rains, topped up nicely by yesterday’s downpours.
Of course he had stopped too late, expecting to find a large concreted area surrounded by regimented rows of kennels. What faced him across the mud were the much-patched remnants of two truly venerable garden sheds, boasting a rainbow of coloured patches garnered over the years, and worn with pride.
Looking down as his feet, which had suddenly begun to feel cold, he found both of them planted in the middle of a puddle, deep enough to lap water over the laces of his hand-made Italian brogues. Carmichael, being a few seconds ahead of him, had found a pair of wellington boots (which by some miracle fitted him), probably from outside the back door, and was prancing around the sheds without a care in the world.
Trying to move his feet proved trickier than Falconer had thought, due to the sticky consistency of the earth at the bottom of the puddle, and as he lifted one foot, a spray of liquid mud which may or may not – but his nose told him the balance was towards may – have the benefit of added dog poo, sprayed up and made join-the-dots patterns on his linen trouser bottoms.
Hastily putting down his airborne foot for the sake of balance, he found he had put it in a small but seriously rural pile of something unidentifiable, and tried not to think what it might be. Unable to free his other foot from the cloying mud of the puddle, he lifted the foot from the pile of whatever, finding himself balancing on one foot again. And it wasn’t long before he found out exactly what the ‘whatever’ was.
‘Carmichael! Come here and give me a hand!’ he yelled, standing on one leg like an unusually formally-attired flamingo in fancy dress, flapping its wings in distress.
From a little further away from Falconer, a little old man – Uncle Pete, presumably – yelled, ‘Hey, what are you a-doin’ wi’ my chicken shit? That was for my compost ’eap. It was gonna be a treat for my garden later this year.’
So that’s what it was!
Carmichael turned and moved towards Falconer, but not quickly enough. As the inspector put his free foot on what appeared to be solid ground, and pulled at his still imprisoned foot, the ‘safe’ foot – safely trapped in the mud, that is – began to slide away from him, threatening to turn him into a human wishbone. The stuck foot suddenly freed itself in a great spray of stinking water, thus adding momentum to the sliding foot while, at the same time joining it in its journey, but in the completely opposite direction.
Falconer’s flamingo wings increased their flapping in a vain attempt to regain his balance, or even maybe to set off unreasonably early for his flight south for the winter, but nothing made any difference. As Carmichael arrived to make a grab for him, he was on his way down, his eyes popping out of his head as he surveyed what he was destined to land in.
Carmichael’s brave attempt to grab him merely resulted in changing the direction in which he f
ell by a few inches, and he landed with a sickening thud in a slimy heap of black and white ‘stuff’, with his nose flattened on the muddy top of one of his sergeant’s wellington boots.
‘’E’s gorn and fallen right in my pile o’ chicken shit,’ complained the wizened old man, who had wandered over to see what was happening with this alien creature who had arrived with his great-nephew. ‘I’ss taken me ages to get tha’ collected, an’ pu’ in a noice toidy ’eap, an’ ’e’s made a roight ole mess onnit. Where’s tha wellies, Maister? Tha do need tha wellies cummin’ in ’ere wi’ all the rain we’ve ’ad,’ asked Uncle Pete, chewing on an old straight pipe and rumpling his unruly hair with one grubby paw.
‘My wellington boots are in the cupboard under my stairs,’ explained Falconer through gritted, nay, gritty teeth as he lay beached, surveying the state of his jacket and shirt. His tie had disappeared, presumably burrowing into the chicken doo-dah in the hope of starting an independent colony.
‘They be no good in there, Maister. You shoulden ’ave them on, cummin’ ’ere in this weather,’ Uncle Pete advised sagely, nodding his head at his own wisdom.
‘I didn’t know I was coming here!’ he shouted in exasperation.
‘Well, where d’you think youm was a-goin’, then?’ Uncle Pete was obviously rehearsing for a forthcoming crosstalk double act in the hope that variety shows would make a come-back, and had landed his stooge partner right in his own back yard. ‘An’ lookit you done to my chicken shit! My pile’s all over the place now. There be a great gobbit on yon poncy jacket o’ yourn. You can scrape that orf before you leaves.’
‘Carmichael! Get me up, get me out of here, and get me home so that I can fumigate myself and change into some less excrementally blessed garments. Now! That’s an order! Please?’ What had started as a shout had deteriorated almost to a whine for mercy, and the sergeant grabbed him by the wrists and began to heave.
There was one ghastly moment when both of them nearly lost their balance at once, and surveyed the now flattened pile of chicken shit in trepidation, but with a monumental effort on the part of the younger man, they both arrived safely back on firm(ish) ground, Falconer with a remarkable resemblance to his cat Tar Baby’s namesake.
Pascal Passion (The Falconer Files Book 4) Page 6
