by Peter Helton
Secure storage. Not such a daft idea, really, apart from the traffic it engendered and the sheer hideousness of it all.
Now that I knew it was there I could just make out the dead dog on the slope to my right. I gave it a wide berth on my way back. At the gate I wheeled the Norton about, sat astride it, and was fastening my helmet strap when the sound of a motorcycle engine approached from downhill. At first I presumed it to be the skinhead on his quad, wanting more words; instead it was a figure on a muddy trail bike that appeared at the bottom of the rise where it came to an abrupt and squelching stop. The rider wore jeans, heavy boots, a red and white jacket and a helmet with blue-tinted goggles; more I couldn’t make out before he jerked his bike around in a ragged turn, while keeping an eye on me. Perhaps he was turning because he realized the lane ended here but I had the distinct feeling the sight of me at the top of the lane was unexpected and had spooked him. One way to find out. I worked the kick-starter. To my immense surprise the engine fired instantly and I shot down the hill in pursuit. If I was wrong about it I would soon know. With my momentary downhill advantage the distance between us quickly closed to only eight or ten yards so that I could easily have read his number plate if there’d been one. No doubt it was hearing the old-fashioned roar of the Norton’s twin peashooter pipes that made him glance over his shoulder. I saw him twist his throttle and he pulled away. I dropped a gear, followed suit and squeezed the last ounce of torque out of the Norton. The ancient technology responded bravely and I kept up with him while we flew past the corrugated iron barn, but as the bend approached I realized that I’d be unable to compete not just with the dirt tyres and modern engine but with the apparent willingness of the rider to risk going arse over tit in order to shake me off. Spattering mud and stones and skating with one foot on the ground, he took the corner at an impressive speed and then sped off in a power slide. By the time I had negotiated the muddy bend and got to the crossroads only the sound of his engine gave away that he had tuned right, towards Spring Farm. Now back on decent tarmac I accelerated with a bit more confidence in my tyres and took the next three bends idiotically fast. It was only the plume of black exhaust the enormous tractor sent skyward as it pulled out of a gate into the lane that stopped me from ploughing into it. Too late to brake. I squeezed myself into the opposite side of lane, foliage whipping my helmet, and shot past the giant machine screaming, with inches to spare. Driving the monster was Jack Fryer.
By the time my heart and I had slowed down again there was no sign of the other rider and all I could hear was the puttering of the Norton and the surge of the tractor’s big diesel. I pootled on in true geriatric style, narked by my idiotic little chase, giving myself an earful of abuse. My Accumulated Guilt Quotient was running high enough; crumpling the Norton and booking myself into hospital would have sent it into orbit.
Without even thinking about it I took the turn to Gemma’s place, crossed the stream without drowning the engine and once more left the bike under the tree. The track from here on in had been so churned up it was quite pointless trying to carefully pick my way between the bogs and puddles. I just squelched and splashed through regardless, in a temper with myself, the weather, the world. The rope was still across the entrance; I ducked under it. The woman’s car was there and a thin thread of smoke rose from the shepherd’s hut. The nights were getting colder now and I tried not to imagine what it must be like to spend a cold and wet winter in a clapped-out caravan. And coming to that, why didn’t I ask her? Along with a few other irritable questions I had on my back burner.
The hut was closed up and, as I could see through the window, unoccupied. The door to the caravan was ajar, an invitation to snoop if ever I saw one. When I pushed it open with two fingers it creaked ominously on its hinges; served me right. Now would have been the last opportunity for any pretence of polite behaviour, like a hearty call of ‘Hello, anybody home?’, but I was in Grumpy Detective Mode and just walked in. Not very far because there wasn’t far to go. It was truly tiny. Everything inside appeared to have been shrunk, too. The gas cooker had only two rings and the sink was full, giving room to a single cauliflower. Cupboards were built into every nook and cranny. At the back was an unruly bed disgorging blankets and cushions over the side, a narrow table cluttered with the remains of a breakfast that had included a boiled egg, and in front of that a short upholstered bench. There was an ashtray crammed with the butts of hand-rolled cigarettes and two empty bottles of Bulgarian table wine. But it was also quite homely: a chilli plant in a pot bearing bright yellow fruit on the table by the window; blue and red cushions with star and moon motifs; a heavy midnight-blue curtain still covering the larger back window; postcards, some of the seaside but mainly of the cutesy dog variety, pinned and Blu-Tacked to every surface. There were several photos of Taxi, looking younger. I opened a cupboard to the left of the cooker: jar upon jar of dried herbs, bottled fruit and pickled roots. Next to the sink an opaque sliding door revealed a claustrophobically narrow shower cubicle housing a mop and bucket.
I stepped outside again. There was less wind at the bottom of the Hollow but up in the sky the clouds still raced, producing a painter’s nightmare of sudden lights and darks. I walked around the side of the caravan between the sheds and the trees. The home-made greenhouse sheltered some broad-leafed plants I didn’t recognize. Walking over duckboards made from old wooden pallets I passed a stone trough gently overflowing with water that welled up from below; one of the springs, no doubt. The ground around here looked spongy, hence the duckboards. To the left, the wooden double doors of a large polytunnel stood wide open. Despite that, the difference in atmosphere as I stepped inside was remarkable. It was several degrees warmer, there was no wind and the earthy and verdant smell reminded me of warmer climates, of spring in the Mediterranean. The tunnel was about eighteen feet wide and seemed to stretch on for ever. The centre was taken up with an endless length of staging full of plants in black plastic pots as well as old tins, buckets and washing-up bowls. On either side in the ground, stretching into infinity it seemed, grew a jungle of plants. I took the right-hand path down the tunnel. Some of this jungle I recognized. There were ragged-looking tomato plants and some kind of spiky cucumber, then a multitude of lettuces.
I walked on right to the end where, near a set of closed doors under several lemon trees laden with small jewel-like fruit, Gemma huddled with her legs drawn up in a decrepit cane chair. A knitted hat, pointed and with ear flaps, gave her a vaguely Tibetan air. She was smoking an elegant, long-stemmed pipe, sending clouds of smoke, fragrant with cannabis, my way. By her side a tea chest supported a mug of tea and smoking paraphernalia.
‘Wondered when you would turn up,’ she said, her speech somewhat impeded by her bruised, swollen and torn lips. Dried blood scabbed the splits. One eye, too, was blackening and almost swollen shut.
‘About now,’ I said, distracted by her abused face. I looked around. Hers was the only chair. This wasn’t a place where Gemma Stone entertained. It was a place to rest from work, or perhaps it was her refuge from the world; a violent world, by the looks of it. The light at the end of this tunnel came filtered through the foliage of the potted lemon grove. I found an empty bucket nearby, turned it over and sat. She ignored me, looking straight past me into the jungle.
Some of my grumpy detective mood had evaporated in the warmth of concern but I couldn’t just sit there and get stoned from passive smoking, which was quite possible considering the liveliness of Gemma’s pipe. I lit one of my less entertaining cigarettes and added my smoke to the heavy atmosphere.
‘You want to talk about it?’ I said at last.
‘What?’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘You mean this?’ She pointed the stem of her pipe at the blackened eye. ‘Nothing to tell, I fell.’
‘Right,’ I said with less than full conviction.
‘Look, it’s really none of your business but if I’d been in a fight I’d say so, okay, it’s hardly a big dea
l. I got drunk, I slipped, I fell, end of story.’
It was always possible, I’d seen the empty bottles. ‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ I lied.
‘Oh, Albert. Yes.’ She returned her attention to the pipe.
‘So he was one of your clients? Why didn’t you say so?’
‘Who do you think you are?’ she said sharply. ‘The police are bad enough, then you turn up, uninvited, asking me questions. Every other day, I might add. I don’t have to tell you anything.’ Shooting me a resentful look was difficult with only one working eye but she managed it quite well. ‘Yes, he bought herbal remedies from me, he was a regular customer.’
‘But you didn’t tell the police that either.’
‘How much d’you think I want police traipsing all over this place, looking for murderers under the flowerpots?’
‘Not a lot,’ I agreed.
‘Too right. I don’t pay tax much, I’m not a trained herbalist, and anyway, no one is licensed to dispense the kind of herb I was supplying to Al. He had bad arthritis and smoking pot alleviates the symptoms. Everyone knows that but it’s illegal nevertheless.’
‘I’m aware of it.’
‘Well then. Nearly a third of this tunnel is given over to growing cannabis. Harvest is over now,’ she gestured down the tunnel, ‘but there’s enough evidence around the place to put me away any time.’
‘So Albert had been here the day he was murdered to buy a supply of pot?’
‘No. Never got here.’
‘But you were expecting him?’
‘He hadn’t made an appointment or anything. He’d just turn up on his electric bike at fairly regular intervals. I did think he was due around that time, that day or the next.’
‘I thought you didn’t like people just turning up.’
‘People like you. But Al was all right. We met at the Bath flower show, I had a stall there selling herbs one year.’
‘And you’d been to his place.’
‘Once or twice when he was too bad to even use the electric bike. He’d send word through the chicken lady who brings him eggs that he couldn’t come, which meant he was more desperate than ever, so I’d go round, see what I could do for him. When you mentioned Albert I got worried and drove over.’
Chicken Lady, Pot Lady . . . Perhaps it was worth finding out what other ladies there might have been in his life and if they too had reasons not to come forward. ‘Okay, so far so good. Now explain why you seem to be completely invisible to DI Deeks. It’s a trick I would pay money to learn.’
‘Deeks is an arsehole,’ she said flatly. ‘You’d do well to stay away from him.’
‘That’s common knowledge but not an explanation.’
‘I’ve known him for years. He picked me up for possession once, ages ago. We came to an understanding. He has a pretty good idea of what goes on down here at Grumpy Hollow. Too good an idea.’ She put down her pipe which had gone out, then picked up her mug of tea and took a sip, which she instantly spat out again in an arc across the path. ‘Eargh, cold tea. Yuch.’ She got up and walked off down the path. ‘I’ll need to make some fresh.’
‘Hey, wait a second.’ I went after her. ‘You mean to say you managed to bribe Deeks into turning a blind eye?’
‘Managed to?’ Stopping beside a cucumber plant she produced a curved pruning knife, liberated one of the fruits and carried on. ‘You don’t have to try hard with Deeks, he’s as corrupt as they come.’ She walked up to me and tapped my chest with the smooth-skinned cucumber. ‘Now I’ve got a question: how come you knew it was Al who’d died in your car when the police didn’t?’
‘I was coming to that.’ And not before time. ‘A couple of kids had told me they thought they’d overheard two men threaten to arrange a little accident for someone called Albert.’
‘Oh? Did those kids happen to say who made the threat?’
‘No. It was dark and they didn’t see who it was.’
‘And you think –’
‘Wait, there was more. In the same breath they also mentioned something similar might happen to the old witch snooping around at night.’
‘So . . .?’ She managed to put considerable challenge into the one syllable.
I squirmed around. ‘Ehm, well, I thought that perhaps, you know, they might have been referring to you, in which case you might be in consid—’
‘The old witch? The old witch? And you think they were talking about me? I’m thirty-eight! Ouch!’ She dabbed her lips; one of her cuts had torn open. ‘Well okay, I feel a hundred and eight today but really!’ She flashed me a one-eyed rebuke. ‘Do you think I look like an old witch?’
Always the hard questions. I wisely ignored this one. ‘You’re not taking this seriously,’ I said instead.
‘This is serious. Just because I work up to my neck in muck half the time in the aptly named Grumpy Hollow doesn’t mean I’m completely beyond caring. So?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Course not what?’
‘Of course you don’t look like an old witch. Though you appear to have inherited your wardrobe from one.’ It just slipped out, you know how it goes.
She took a slow deep breath. ‘Says the bloke who rides around dressed like a crashed Spitfire pilot. Ha. Now I really need more tea.’
I followed her back to the caravan. ‘And you’re not worried?’
‘For the old witch?’ She shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But look around you, what would you have me do? If someone wants to hurt me who’s going to stop them?’ When we reached the caravan she squinted at the bottom hinge of the door. ‘Had a good look around inside then, did you?’
‘How can you tell?’
‘I left a dried lentil behind the hinge, it’s on the ground now. No matter. Come in, I might even make you a mug of tea.’
I sat at the table while Gemma lit the gas under a whistling kettle on the stove and cleared away her breakfast debris. ‘You know how they say it’s a small world? Well, you’ve no idea how small until you’ve tried living in a caravan. Now, let’s see.’ She stood on tiptoe to rummage in a cupboard fitted into the curve of the roof above the bed. From there she produced a shoe box, set it opened on to the table and almost reverentially folded back the tissue paper to reveal a pair of tiny, shiny, insubstantial-looking shoes, black, strappy, open-toed with three-inch heels. She lifted them out and placed them on the table, then turned them until they pointed accusingly at me. ‘And how far do you think I’d get in those? I wouldn’t even make it to the car. No, no, no, wait.’ Another dive into the cupboard above my head. This time she produced a bundle wrapped in tissue paper. She opened it and let the content unwind in front of her: a little black dress, bias-cut, black beads shimmering around the neckline. ‘Do you know when I last wore that?’ She rolled it up again, quickly, angrily. ‘I don’t. Can’t even remember. Oh, yes I can, Christmas two years ago. Jack Fryer had invited me for Christmas dinner at Spring Farm. When I got there it turned out I was the only guest. He had too much Christmas cheer and lunged at me over the roast chicken. I stuck a fork in one of his paws and drove myself home. Ever since then, usually around the full moon when he’s had a skinful, he comes round here to apologize and tries to make it up to me, if you know what I mean. I keep a special fork for him in my drawer,’ she concluded and carefully put away the shoes before seeing to the kettle which had begun to whistle like a steam train.
‘Couldn’t you get a more aggressive dog to help guard this place?’ I suggested tactlessly when two mugs of tea steamed between us.
She shook her head. ‘Not while Taxi is around,’ she said, looking out of the window.
‘I have bad news, I’m afraid.’
Gemma put her mug down. She understood instantly. ‘Oh. Poor Taxi. I had him for ever, it seemed. He went walkabouts some time yesterday. I was afraid that in this weather . . . Where did you find him?’
‘Just a bit further up the valley.’
‘You mean near Blackfield’s place?’
I n
odded.
‘Any sign of how he died?’
‘Not really. Hard to tell, I’m not a vet, you know.’
‘So he wasn’t run over or anything obvious like that. Probably old age, he was ancient, and the weather has been lousy. But I always hoped he’d just lie down by the stove and fade away, not out in the cold. But he always liked to roam. Come on, drink up, show me.’
‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea . . .’
‘Rubbish. Can’t let him just lie there. I thought you loved animals. We’ll go and bury him.’ She walked out, leaving me little choice but to gulp my scalding hot tea and follow her. With spade over her shoulder, pointy hat and scabbed and bruised face, she appeared to have stepped out of some medieval tapestry, the kind where people lie about with arrows stuck in their eyes. She chucked the spade into the cluttered back of the Volvo and we got in.
‘How’s Al’s cat settling in with you?’ she asked as she propelled the car up the slope.
‘Oh, he’s fine, still sniffing out the place. He can open doors, did you know that?’
Gemma stopped so I could get out and remove the rope from across the entrance. ‘Have you decided what to call him yet?’ she asked when I got back in.
‘Not yet.’
‘He’s a cute cat. You could call him Widget.’
‘No chance.’
‘Suit yourself.’ She took the ford of the brook as though it was open road, just briefly flicking the windscreen wipers on and off. Once up in the lane she cranked the big Zeppelin of a car round the corners in grim, high speed silence and eventually powered it up the hill so fast I thought she was going to drive smack through the locked gate on to Blackfield’s land. Instead she stopped a couple of inches short of the chain link, jumped out and got the spade.
‘Go on, show us.’
‘Actually, I think he did have some kind of accident. It looked as if . . . someone might have hit him.’
‘Hit him,’ she repeated flatly.
