The Rags of Time: A DC Smith Investigation

by Peter Grainger

  ‘So, what did you personally do? You and Serena didn’t get to come out here?’

  ‘No. We did backgrounds, traced his vehicles, checked his records.’

  ‘Nothing going on in his bank?’

  ‘Serena did that. Nothing much in his bank most of the time.’

  ‘How far back did she go?’

  ‘A year, I think.’

  The annoyance was gone – Smith was thinking now.

  Waters said, ‘Should we go back further? I know it might be making an assumption but whatever he was up to, if he was up to anything, didn’t make him any money, DC.’

  ‘No… But always think motive. Motive, motive, motive. Find the motive and you’re close to the villain of the piece. And you know it’s sex or money, ninety per cent of the time. Twenty per cent of the time it’s sex and money. But probably not in a field after dark. Anyway, let’s hope not. Somebody found a reason to come up behind him as he was detecting away and clout him so hard with a spade that it shattered his skull. Why? Had he found something? There was a hole dug in the ground in front of him, wasn’t there? I could see it in the photographs.’

  ‘Two holes. The assumption is… The deduction is that he had been working that area of ground intensively. Maybe he found something.’

  ‘Could have been a squabble over that – two of them there working together until one decides to keep all the loot. Be handy, in that case, to know about other recent incidents of illegal metal-detecting in the area, wouldn’t it?’

  It was a point well made and Waters felt no need to answer.

  Smith said, ‘You still forgot to ask about badger-digging. This is a disappointment as I’m told it was you who connected the possible murder weapon to both nefarious, after-dark activities.’

  ‘Sorry, sergeant.’

  ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’

  ‘I expect it means we’ll have to come back and eat more home-made cheese scones, sergeant.’

  Smith was getting out of the car, and Waters thought, I shouldn’t have mentioned that – he’s going straight back for them now. But Smith walked around the front to the passenger’s side and said, ‘You drive. I’m going to take in the scenery.’

  Waters had the Peugeot running and reversed when Smith raised a hand slightly to stop him.

  ‘Talking of home-made cheese scones, what did you make of Steven Harper?’

  ‘I think he might have had an unfortunate experience with us at some point. Maybe it was just a mud-on-the-road complaint. He’s worth a log-in, I’d say.’

  ‘Me, too. Did he just lie to us?’

  Waters thought long enough for Smith to have turned to look, waiting for his answer.

  ‘I think he might not have told us the whole truth. I’m not sure why I think that.’

  ‘Good distinction, nonetheless. You have begun to redeem yourself, Deep Waters. Drive on, and spare the horses. We’ll be stuck in an office soon enough.’

  But when they had rounded the corner of the farmhouse and were pulling away towards the avenue of cherry trees, they could see a figure waiting in the pool of shade beneath the first one. Waters eased off on the pedal and looked at Smith.

  Smith said, ‘Hmm. Talk of the devil.’

  Chapter Five

  When Steven Harper was in the back seat and the door was closed, Waters drove on until they were halfway around the first bend and the farmhouse was out of sight – that had been at Harper’s request. After the noise of the engine died away, there was a moment when nobody spoke, and with the windows still wound down, they could hear birdsong – one bird in particular giving an unfamiliar, high-fluted whistle over and over in the cherry tree branches above. Smith thought about Jo Evison then – she would have been able to tell him the name of that bird. Then he turned around to Harper.

  ‘Right then, sir. Can we take it that you have remembered something that might be of use to us?’

  Waters had turned around as well so that he could see Steven Harper. Smith’s opening had been as unthreatening as possible, and quite deliberately so, because Harper was looking distinctly uncomfortable and out of place in the back seat of a policeman’s car. For a moment Waters wondered whether he was going to confess to something dreadful.

  Harper said, ‘I did speak to him, the bloke in the field.’

  Smith did not react at all other than to say, ‘Go on. I expect this was when you went back in the Range Rover?’

  Harper nodded and said, ‘He was just about to draw off in the van. I pulled in front so he couldn’t.’

  ‘And then you had a few words with him…’

  Harper was silent.

  Smith said, ‘Was it any more than words, Mr Harper? Did you come to blows?’

  ‘No. I never touched him. He started mouthing off and I …’

  ‘You threatened him? Told him if you saw him around again, he’d get more than a bollocking?’

  ‘Yes, that was pretty much it.’

  ‘And you never told your mother because…?’

  ‘Didn’t want to worry her. We’ve been confronted before – the diesel thieves and all that. She’d go ballistic if she thought I’d been close to fighting anyone on the side of the road.’

  Smith turned away from him and caught Waters’ eye in the process. Harper wasn’t a teenager still frightened of his mother’s tongue – he must be close to thirty. On the other hand, having met Mrs Harper, what he had said made some sense – he could see why the son wouldn’t want to let her down.

  Still with his back to Harper, looking through the windscreen at the alternating patches of sunlight and shadow below the trees on the road before them, Smith said, ‘Anything else?’

  ‘It definitely wasn’t this Mark Randall. That’s why I was so certain in the house – I was up close to him. It wasn’t the bloke who got done in.’

  Waters made a point of taking out his notebook and a pen; Harper had to go on the record now, having voluntarily got into the car. With Smith still apparently in a state of contemplation, Waters said, ‘Can you give us a description, Mr Harper?’

  Medium height, medium build, a bit older than himself, so probably in his late thirties or early forties. Short, thinning hair and slightly gingery, face a bit blotchy and sort of reddish. Couldn’t say about his eyes, you don’t notice the colour of men’s eyes… But he had paint on his hands, white paint, like he’d been at work somewhere nearby and had stopped off at the field while he was in the area. And there were splashes of paint on his jeans as well.

  Smith hadn’t moved but Waters knew that he was listening to that, and leaving it to himself to follow it up.

  Waters said, ‘Why working nearby, Mr Harper? He might have been doing his own place up.’

  ‘No. When I let him out, he reversed back at me as close as he dare, you know, revving and trying to scare me – I could see into the back of the van, he had buckets and brushes, all the gear.’

  ‘I asked you before whether the van had any distinguishing marks.’

  ‘It didn’t, if you mean outside. Ordinary white van, not new, it had done a few miles.’

  ‘You didn’t make a note of the registration?’

  Harper shook his head.

  ‘No. That’s what we usually do, but things had got a bit tense, hadn’t they? I was making sure he didn’t actually run me over.’

  Waters waited then but Smith still said nothing. He closed the notebook and said, ‘Thanks for this, Mr Harper. It was a couple of months ago now – but would you know this man if you saw him again? Would you recognise him? If we asked you to come into Kings Lake and look at some photographs, perhaps?’

  Yes, he would – there had been no hesitation about that. Then Smith turned back to Harper and said, ‘How do you feel about these detectorists coming onto your land?’

  It was a different sort of question to the ones that he had just been answering, and Harper looked nonplussed for a moment.

  ‘Well… They damage the crops. They dig holes when stuff
is barely through.’

  ‘Have you got rabbits on your land, Mr Harper?’

  Harper glanced at Waters, as if to say can’t we carry on with the sensible questions? No help was forthcoming, and so he answered.

  ‘Of course, plenty.’

  ‘Rabbits dig holes all around your fields every night. I can’t imagine that the damage one or two metal detectorists a month do even comes close to that, does it? To be honest, Mr Harper, it’s why we, the police that is, aren’t going to get involved most of the time. A few holes in a field? Hardly the Great Train Robbery, is it?’

  There was a different, a darker expression on the farmer’s face now.

  He said, ‘They’re taking things that don’t belong to them. Out here we still call that theft.’

  ‘You mean the artefacts? Mostly a few old coins, isn’t it? I should think all the good finds have been made by now. And anyway, even though it might be on your land, it doesn’t belong to you either, does it? Treasure trove laws and all that…’

  ‘Not the bloody point! They don’t even ask! I know that as far as you lot are concerned, the laws of trespass no longer exist but living out here they do or they should. People have no respect.’

  ‘No respect for what’s mine and what’s thine.’

  ‘You said it. We have diesel thieves, organised gangs nicking fifty thousand pound machines, poachers, hare coursers, fly-grazers, motorbikes and quads ridden through crops – it goes on and on, and it’s hardly worth reporting. You can’t blame us if we deal with it ourselves.’

  Harper was genuinely angry and probably no longer aware that he was sitting in the back of a police car trying to correct the lies that he had told them earlier on.

  Smith said, ‘I cannot condone it, Mr Harper, but I can understand your frustration.’

  The bird was still calling up in the cherry trees, closer now and still completely unfamiliar. Smith leaned to his left and peered up into the sunlit foliage for a few seconds before turning back to Steven Harper.

  ‘That’s an unusual call, isn’t it? Do you know what that bird is, Mr Harper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The silence grew and became an obvious one. Eventually Smith’s raised eyebrows settled on the occupant of the back seat.

  ‘I do, but I’m not supposed to say.’

  Smith stared a moment longer and then said to Waters, ‘I suppose we could arrest him for withholding information from the police…’

  Harper said, ‘I’m not joking. If you see a bloke with a beard and binoculars on your way out, he’s an RSPB special warden. It’s a golden oriole. They’ve nested in a poplar plantation further down the valley before but we’ve got a pair up here this year.’

  Smith looked impressed.

  ‘Golden oriole? Sounds rare, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Two or three pairs in Britain most years.’

  ‘Really? Goodness me. How did the RSPB get involved?’

  ‘We called them. They’re guarding the nest site now. They came out straight away.’

  Smith accepted the dig with good grace and a genuine smile, before he continued, ‘And back to the matter in hand, Mr Harper. Would I be right in thinking that if you did see a van parked in a gateway after dark and you thought that one of these nighthawks was in a field that belonged to you, you would go and investigate – assuming that Mrs Harper wasn’t with you at the time?’

  For all his temper, Harper was not a fool, and Waters saw him realise where this might be going. Nevertheless, he answered directly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And have you ever done so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. If at some future point I asked you to tell me where you were on the night of Wednesday the 19th of June, you wouldn’t have any difficulty with that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Fair enough. Mrs Harper has our phone numbers, so if anything else crops up, give us a ring. DC Waters?’

  ‘While you’re here, Mr Harper, can I ask you about badger digging?’

  ‘Oh yes, you can add that to the list. We thought it had stopped after the court case two years ago but this spring it’s happened again. Nobody’s caught them at it but we’ve found two setts dug out. I’m no fan of the badger but these are evil bastards – excuse me.’

  ‘What’s wrong with badgers? Is it the TB?’

  ‘No – we’re an arable farm.’

  Smith shook his head at the sad ignorance of young people with degrees in history.

  Harper continued, ‘Badgers will dig into the sides of ditches and go under the field. When something heavy like a combine goes over, it can collapse. Digging out a sunk combine is no bloody joke. We sometimes encourage them to move on somewhere else but we don’t hurt them. They’re protected, anyway.’

  Smith said, ‘These two setts that were interfered with – when and where?’

  Harper pointed up and to his left – ‘One was on the edge of the wood at the top there, and the other was down near the river. We only noticed that had been dug this week.’

  ‘The river near the friary?’

  ‘Yes, back at Abbeyfield. There’s a sett on a bend where the riverbank is high, been there as long as I can remember.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know they had such permanent homes.’

  And there he is, thought Waters, getting interested again – now it’s wildlife. First golden orioles and now badgers. He’ll be collecting butterflies next.

  Smith said, ‘Is that on the edge of the same field as where Mark Randall was found?’

  Harper seemed a little surprised that this visitor from the town had grasped the local geography so quickly.

  ‘No, the one next door. We rent two fields from the friary down there.’

  ‘Yes, so Mrs Harper said. And that sett has been dug out how recently, would you say?’

  ‘Within the past month. I’ve been down there regular this summer – I’d have noticed if it were before that.’

  Smith thanked Steven Harper for his help then – no mention was made of the fact that he had not done so when he first had the opportunity. Harper got out and they watched him walk back to the farm in their respective mirrors, his boots clumping on the dusty road, his big hands and strong wrists poking out from the sleeves of the green overalls. When he was out of sight, Waters waited for the order to start the car, excited and allowing himself to feel excited now, because he knew that they had something.

  But Smith settled back in the car-seat, eyes half-closed as if he was about to take a snooze. Waters said, ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘I think that we’re going to sit here for another five minutes. What are the chances that we’ll ever get to hear one of these again? A golden oriole…’

  On the way back to Kings Lake Central, Serena Butler called Smith on his mobile. She said that she was just checking in but he knew that she was really asking about what they were doing and what there was to be done – she was always bored if she had to sit at a desk for very long. He told her to stay there, they would be back in fifteen minutes and he needed to speak to her about Gareth Stone – she had been present at one of his interviews, hadn’t she? Yes, the first one, why? He didn’t tell her but said to get everything they had on Stone together. Anyone from Wilson’s team in the office? Apparently Mike Dunn was at his desk, typing away. ‘He’ll do,’ said Smith, ‘he won’t mind keeping you company until we get there.’ She made the usual dismissive remark but Smith had a fifty pence bet with himself that when he walked in the two of them would be sharing a desk.

  As they climbed the stairs, Waters said, ‘Should we call Sergeant Wilson before we start?’

  ‘And tell him what? No – we’ll put something together properly and then we’ll have something proper to hand over. We’re certainly not waiting until he’s back in – from what I remember, he’s possibly with Gareth Stone this afternoon, so we need to look sharp.’

  Serena and Mike Dunn were sharing her desk. Smith wondered whether he should give them some fat
herly advice; Maggie Henderson and John Murray had never shown each other affection at work and they had still ended up with a baby… Instead he told Waters to get Gareth Stone’s file up on the screen, and told the other two where they had just been.

  ‘Serena, describe Gareth Stone.’

  ‘Medium height, slightly overweight. Sort of round-shouldered. Sandy-coloured hair, a bit thin on top. He doesn’t like looking you in the eye. And his eyes are a bit too close together.’

  ‘Too close together for what?’

  ‘I don’t know but they are.’

  Nine times out of ten Smith would have pursued that conversational hare but not today. Instead he glanced across at Waters, who said, reading from the screen, ‘Painter and decorator – self-employed, runs his business from home which is at Worthinghoe.’

  Serena said, ‘That’s where we spoke to him, more or less. His wife was at home – he was doing a job a couple of streets away, and she sent us there. What’s happened?’

  When one first began to work with him, Smith’s lines of questioning could seem peculiar, to say the least, but Serena Butler had been around long enough now to show no surprise when, instead of answering her, he said, ‘What did she say? Did she ask why we wanted a word with him?’

  ‘No – just told us where he was.’

  Smith’s eyebrows performed a range of the usual manoeuvres, and in the pause Serena said, to herself as much as anyone, ‘Which is a bit odd when you think about it…’

  Smith said, ‘Either she already knew – or thought she did – or she couldn’t be bothered. What was she like?’

  ‘Ordinary.’

  ‘Ah. That explains it.’

  And Serena had been around too long to be concerned by a remark like that either. She looked at Mike Dunn and then repeated, ‘So what’s happened?’

  ‘Almost there. I’ve only skimmed through the notes so far. What did he say about Abbeyfield, the Lowacre area. Presumably he was asked whether he knew it, whether he’d been doing any detecting there?’