Elena was peeling potatoes and Mariner stood and watched her for a second. He wondered if she and Rex had any idea about what else might be being produced on Abbey Farm, and if they would enjoy the relaxed relationship they seemed to have with Willow if they found out. At that moment Elena looked up and saw him and beckoned him into the kitchen. She looked pale and distracted. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’
‘No, I’m fine, I’ve already eaten. I’m not going to disturb you today.’
‘Oh, we’ve already been disturbed,’ she said. ‘The police were here.’
‘Yes, I saw.’
‘The man you found . . . It was Theo Ashton.’
‘The boy from the farm?’ said Mariner.
‘Well, hardly a boy any more, but much too young to die, and in such horrible circumstances. Apparently when one of Ryan’s officers went to tell them at the farm about what had happened in the woods, they realized Theo hadn’t been seen all day.’ Elena looked up at Mariner, her eyes gleaming. ‘What’s going on? Why would something like that happen here of all places? I’ve just told Cerys. It’s freaked her out, of course.’
‘How well did you know him?’
Elena shook her head. ‘Not well at all really, but he’s been around for a while. He seemed such a nice lad, sort of shy. I can’t begin to imagine who might have done such a thing. Do they have any idea?’
‘It’s hard to say,’ said Mariner. ‘It’s the very early stages and the police will be trying to gather as much information together as they can. If they had any thoughts about it last night, they weren’t sharing them with me. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to.’
‘Oh God, I keep thinking about poor Amber.’ Elena saw Mariner’s quizzical look. ‘Theo’s girlfriend. And after losing the baby too.’
‘They had a baby?’
‘When she and Theo first fetched up here Amber was pregnant, about six months gone. They were both just kids, about fifteen or so. The consensus was that they’d run away from home because of her condition. Then just before the baby was due Amber had a miscarriage and lost the child. I know it was a few years ago now, but she’s always been so fragile. And now, losing Theo, this might just be enough to kill her too.’
‘Just as I was leaving the farm the other day, a young woman came over to Willow; a thin waif of a thing, with long blonde hair.’
Elena nodded distractedly. ‘She’s got beautiful hair.’ So that was Amber.
* * *
After what he had witnessed during the night, Mariner’s intention was to walk first of all up to the MIU, but he had no need to; on his way out of the village he came across DI Griffith, lurking by the entrance to Gwennol Hall, drawing on a cigarette. His suit was creased and the curve of his shoulders made him look shifty. Mariner raised a hand to acknowledge him and was encouraged when Griffith waved him over.
‘How’s it going?’ Mariner asked, expecting no more than a vague reply about ‘ongoing enquiries.’
Griffith shrugged. ‘We’ve no murder weapon yet, and thanks to the weather, bugger all useful material evidence and a time of death that’s little more than a shot in the dark,’ he said, confounding Mariner. ‘Other than that, it’s goin’ great.’
‘One of those,’ Mariner sympathized. He’d been up against enough dead-end investigations himself.
‘One of those,’ Griffith agreed, taking the final drag on his cigarette before tossing it on to the road and grinding it flat with his shoe. ‘About the only thing we’re sure of now is the victim’s identity.’
‘Theo Ashton,’ Mariner said. ‘Elena told me.’
‘Did you know him?’ Griffith was understandably surprised.
‘No. I’d heard the name though. Elena mentioned him, and there can’t be too many Theos around here. When I went up to the farm to get some eggs yesterday, she told me to watch out for him. That was before we knew . . .’ Suddenly Mariner remembered the two men he’d seen, and their heated discussion. If Theo had been one of those then there might be a sniff of something, however vague. ‘Actually, I might have seen him.’ He recounted what he had witnessed through his binoculars two days before. ‘The man who was casually dressed was probably about six-foot, slim, fair haired. Does that sound like him? It was hard to tell anything from what I saw in the woods.’
‘It sounds about right,’ Griffith said. ‘Do you have any idea who he was talking to?’
‘No. It was another man, a little older perhaps. Strange thing though, he looked out of place. He had a sharp haircut and was wearing a suit and tie, like a sales rep or something, though I couldn’t see a car anywhere.’
‘I’ll check with Willow if they’ve had anyone call. You didn’t catch the gist of this conversation?’
‘No, they were much too far away, and it was more the tension between them that was evident initially; the way they were standing. But they seemed to part on good terms. I couldn’t swear to it, but I thought something might have been handed over too, something small, in the guise of a handshake. Do you have any sign of a motive yet?’ Mariner asked, since it seemed he was being invited to engage.
‘Nothing that specifically points to the victim,’ Griffith said. ‘Theo Ashton appears to have been a popular lad; polite, considerate. Most people have described him as being quite shy.’
As did Elena, Mariner remembered. ‘Was he from round here?’
‘No, he’s one of those that Nigel Weller — Willow — has picked up along the way. The family’s from Bristol. Nice, normal middle-class family. A bit shocked when their only son ran away with his girl five years ago, but tolerant enough to have let him stay on here.’
‘And the others who live there?’
‘There’s just Willow and Amber now.’
‘I wonder how they’ll manage the farm between them.’
‘It’s made the corroboration of alibis straightforward enough though. The time of death is estimated as early in the morning. Amber is fully out of the picture, having got the early bus into Llanerch, and Willow was about on the farm before going off to the market. Talked to you, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, he gave me the eggs.’
‘So nothing there to worry me. Seems to be all happy families; no quarrels, no fallings-out, though we’ll keep probing of course.’
‘If it’s not personal then, the killing could have something to do with the business of the farm,’ Mariner said, that leaf in his pocket beginning to take on a whole new significance.
‘Possibly.’ Griffith dipped his head. ‘I understand from a woman working up at the Hall there’s some kind of potential land dispute, so we’re looking into that too.’
So Suzy Yin had told him. Mariner was glad that he wouldn’t be required to break Rex’s confidence. ‘But what about the farm’s production?’ he pressed.
‘What, you mean Willow’s magic formula?’ Misunderstanding, Griffith didn’t appear to take the suggestion very seriously. ‘I suppose we can’t rule it out, though Willow insists that Theo didn’t know enough about that side of the business to get him into trouble.’
‘If that’s what the main business really is,’ Mariner said.
‘What do you mean?’
Mariner took the leaf out of his pocket. It had dried a little and was squashed, but to his eyes there was still no doubting what it was, and from the expression on Griffith’s face, he instantly recognized it too.
The DI stared. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘I found it on the ground in the main compound of the farm, not far from that shiny new barn,’ Mariner said.
‘Shame you didn’t show me this yesterday.’
‘I didn’t have it yesterday. I thought I’d seen it on the ground, when I was talking to Willow, but I couldn’t be a hundred per cent certain. There was no opportunity to pick it up then, not without arousing suspicion, so last night I went back for it. Abbey Farm is quite a busy place in the dead of night.’
‘Weller told me that he needed to get his mail order deliveries
out last night. I agreed that he could.’
‘If that’s really what he was doing.’
‘You think there’s another sideline . . .’ Griffith looked down, considering the leaf he was holding between finger and thumb. A hint of defensiveness had crept into his voice. It might have been a resistance to being told how to do his job. Mariner would probably have felt the same way. But it had also crossed his mind in the course of their conversation that Griffith might have already guessed what was in that shed and was choosing, for whatever reason, to turn a blind eye to it. Corruption was too strong a word, but it was not unheard of in these remote areas for the local police to put their loyalty to the local community above other more professional considerations. There was even a chance that Griffith may have been profiting from the enterprise himself. The difference now was that someone could have been killed for it. Mariner would need to tread very carefully. ‘Having your permission to load up a transit and send it on its way would have been a great opportunity to dispose of any incriminating evidence,’ he said.
‘Christ.’ Griffith scratched the back of his head. ‘He told me he would lose money if he didn’t get the order out, and I believed him. We didn’t know until this morning that the victim was directly related to the farm, so I couldn’t see what harm it would do.’
‘And maybe it hasn’t,’ said Mariner, generously. ‘But there are some things about Abbey Farm that don’t quite add up,’ he went on.
‘Like what?’ Griffith frowned at him.
‘It’s obvious that the property has had enormous amounts of money spent on it in the last few years,’ said Mariner. ‘And even with Willow’s “magic formula,” which he admits is still in the development phase, I can’t see how growing organic veg is that profitable.’
‘It ought to be,’ remarked Griffith drily. ‘Bloody stuff’s expensive enough.’
‘But if you look at the acreage of those fields, and consider that they’re regularly selling in markets, and apparently also by mail order, I can’t see how it’s even sustainable, let alone as profitable as it appears to be.’
‘I’ve always been impressed with how they keep it all going on such a small staff,’ Griffith admitted. ‘There’s a lot of hard work to be done there and Amber looks as if she’d blow away at the first puff of wind.’
‘And that new barn’s a conundrum,’ Mariner continued. ‘If its function is to store vegetables, why does it need that level of insulation and a generator powered by two wind turbines? I think whatever is stored in there has to be kept very warm. I tried to take a look last night while I was there and triggered an alarm system. All hell broke loose, which begs a further question: why does a barn used for storing vegetables need to be alarmed?’
Griffith held up the cannabis leaf. ‘This would certainly help to square that particular equation.’
‘And might offer an explanation for Theo Ashton’s murder,’ Mariner said.
Griffith seemed to consider for a moment. ‘We’ve had a preliminary look at the farm house, but the team is up there finishing off,’ Griffith said. ‘Now might be a good time to go and assess their progress. Want to join me?’
Mariner was surprised; he’d expected Griffith to be more guarded. Perhaps he’d read the man wrong after all. As they approached the farm it looked as if the search was coming to an end and the boiler-suited forensic scene-of-crime team was starting to pack up.
‘If what you say is true, let’s just hope they’ve been careless,’ Griffith murmured to Mariner. He called out to his team leader, a stocky man with cropped hair. ‘How’s it going, Steve?’
Steve wandered over. ‘Nothing we could find specifically relating to the murder. We’ve taken some notebooks and bits and pieces along with a couple of computers, which your man Willow has been relaxed enough about. We’ve done a pretty thorough search in and around the house for a murder weapon, but even if it originated here, it would seem pretty foolish to bring it back again. There is one thing we’ll need to include in the report though; you might want to come and take a look.’
Mariner and Griffith followed the officer through the farmhouse to a conservatory where there were, in plain sight for anyone to see, about a dozen cannabis plants lined up on a windowsill. ‘I’m assured that they are for personal use only and given the number it would seem plausible.’
‘And who can argue with that?’ said Griffith, throwing Mariner a meaningful look.
‘It doesn’t rule out . . .’ Mariner began.
‘I know,’ said Griffith. They’d emerged from the house and were crossing the farmyard when Griffith indicated the new barn, seemingly as an afterthought. ‘Have we looked in there?’ he asked one of his officers.
‘No, sir.’
Griffith turned to Willow, who had followed them outside. ‘Do you mind?’
Willow raised his arms in a be-my-guest gesture.
Mariner walked, with Griffith, over to the shed. It was unlocked, Mariner noticed, with no sign of the padlock anywhere. Griffith slid back the door and, as they walked in, the temperature dropped considerably. The barn wasn’t, as Mariner had thought, being heated, but was being refrigerated.
Willow seemed to guess what he was thinking. ‘One of the issues we wrestle with is that the vegetables we produce are, for various reasons, not as hardy as one would hope,’ he said, from just behind them. ‘Even with our own turbines it’s an expense, but it reduces the wastage for us.’
The interior of the shed was lined with heavy-duty steel shelves. Most were empty, but a complete row of them on one side held about a dozen insulated plastic crates, similar to those Mariner had seen being loaded into the van last night. He slid one out and peered at the contents, a jumble of soil-encrusted carrots. Pushing it back, he studied the slogan on the end of the crate, which was in a foreign language. He walked the length of the barn, casting his eye over the empty shelves, though no longer sure what he was looking for. Unless he really was a miracle worker, not even Willow could grow cannabis in these sub-arctic conditions.
‘Actually, I do have one confession,’ said Willow, rather sheepishly, as they were leaving the barn. Both men turned to him expectantly. ‘These crates.’ He placed his hand on one of the empty ones stacked just inside the door. ‘We “acquired” them from a Dutch producer, and not entirely legitimately.’
Griffith walked back down part of the farm track towards the road with Mariner.
‘Sorry,’ said Mariner. ‘A false trail you could have done without.’
Griffith dismissed the apology. ‘You weren’t to know. It might have been the breakthrough we needed.’ There seemed no hint of satisfaction in his voice and Mariner sensed that his disappointment was genuinely shared.
‘So, aside from that possible motive, it could be that Theo Ashton was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?’ he speculated, following the same thought processes as he would have been going through in Griffith’s shoes.
‘That’s about all we’re left with,’ Griffith said. ‘The possibility that he heard or saw something he shouldn’t have, either at the time he was killed or prior to it. The lad was a keen artist. He liked to draw the birds and had set up some nesting boxes in the woods that he spent time observing. It was common knowledge amongst anyone who knew him that he was often in the woods in the early hours.’
‘And you’re happy about Hennessey?’ Mariner asked.
‘I’m not sure if happy is the right word, but we can’t place him at the scene when Theo Ashton was killed. Around that time I understand he was being provided with comprehensive room service by Megan, the bar maid at the White Hart.’
The two men parted company at the entrance to the Hall, and Griffith, hands shoved deep in his pockets, headed up towards the MIU.
‘I hope you get your break soon,’ Mariner called after him, and got a nod in response. He didn’t envy Griffith the task ahead. The way the weather had been yesterday it was unlikely that there would be much evidence remaining in the immediate vic
inity, and the murder weapon, if discarded, could be concealed anywhere around here. Griffith would be relying on the accuracy of the time of death, piecing together Theo Ashton’s last known movements and hoping that somewhere an eye-witness had seen something of significance. It wasn’t possible to consider suspects without knowing more about Theo Ashton, but surely a kid of that age couldn’t have had many enemies.
As he was walking away Mariner remembered the vehicle from Friday night. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he called out, ‘do you know anyone around here who drives a black Range Rover?’
Puzzled by the question, Griffith shook his head, ‘No, why?’
‘There was one hanging about in the village late the night before last, trying not to be noticed.’
‘Did you get a registration?’
Mariner shook his head. ‘Too dark,’ he said.
‘I’ll look into it.’
‘Thanks.’ Mariner walked on.
Mariner felt uneasy and slightly guilty. Elena had been right. He had come out here to get away from criminal activity, but in actual fact it was proving to be a welcome distraction. Last night, he realized, was the first time since her death that he hadn’t dreamed about Anna in one way or another.
Chapter Twenty
While Mariner was ambling through a neighbouring village, his mobile suddenly bleeped into life. He’d forgotten to switch it off again after the discovery of Theo Ashton and must have walked into an area with coverage. He’d decided before this holiday that he would only use his phone for emergencies and was tempted to switch it off again without checking for messages. But in the end he couldn’t resist. There were a couple from his network that he deleted straight away, but there was also a voicemail from Tony Knox, typically short and to the point: Hi, it’s Tony Knox. Give us a call if you get the chance, boss. There’s some information I could do with. The message had been left only the day before. It didn’t sound urgent, but amid his grief for Anna, Mariner knew that his head had been all over the place in the last few weeks and that there was every possibility he’d overlooked something at work. Among other things he’d been putting together a couple of cases that Knox might have to present to the CPS while he was away and could easily imagine that he could have neglected to include some piece of vital paperwork. The active area must have been a small one because when he tried to call Knox back all he got was the ‘no service’ alert, but when he got to the next village he was greeted by a rare sight — a public phone box and, incredibly, one that apparently still functioned, so he used his credit card to call through to Knox’s home number on the off-chance of catching him there.
Buried Lies (Reissue) Page 15
