Cooper shrugged. He’d thought Flagg’s point-to-point races were pretty famous, in their own way.
‘The protestors are gathering in the lane,’ said Fry. ‘Discussing tactics, you think?’
‘More than likely. They’re usually well organized.’
Once, when Cooper had been on hunt policing duty as a uniformed officer, one group of saboteurs had turned up with something called a ‘gizmo’, a sort of modified loud-hailer which played tapes of hounds in cry to distract the pack away from the quarry. He’d watched them drive along a dirt track in their van, playing their gizmo, with the hounds running towards them from a field away and loping along behind their wheels. And then there were the ubiquitous sprays — cans of Anti-mate, or a home-made brew concocted from citronella or garlic — anything that would mask the scent of a fox.
These days, of course, the hunt only followed a fox-based scent mixed with vegetable oil, laid by followers.
‘Tarmac and concrete won’t hold scent for long,’ said Cooper. ‘Wet ground provides good scenting conditions, but not in heavy rain — the scent gets washed away.’
‘Just like our DNA and trace evidence.’
‘Yes.’
Of course, it wasn’t always a scent that attracted the hounds. The hunt wasn’t riding through local villages to exercise the pack any more, not since someone’s pet cat had been killed by them early one morning. You’d think the sight and sound of a few dozen hunting dogs would be enough of a warning to a cat, let alone the scent. Cooper could smell these hounds himself.
‘Now, if we get among the horses, Diane, remember that a red ribbon on the tail of a horse means it’s liable to kick, so avoid passing behind it.’
‘Don’t worry. I have no intention of getting behind a horse ever again.’
‘Oh, I heard.’
Fry changed the subject rapidly.
‘Hunts are always policed, whether there are protestors or not. And we do make arrests sometimes, don’t we?’
‘The hunts expect it.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You’ll find every hunt supporter carries a Countryside Alliance membership card. If they get arrested, they’ll use their right to a telephone call to phone the CA legal team. So they get expert legal advice from the word “go”.’
‘There’s the huntsman now,’ said Fry.
‘You recognize him?’
‘Yes, I’ve spoken to him. John Widdowson.’
‘Widdowson?’ said Cooper. ‘That reminds me, Diane — there was something I meant to mention to you.’
‘What?’
‘There was a Naomi Widdowson on Walsh’s list of complainants in the Trading Standards investigation. But she was also one of the IPs on the Horse Watch list. I know you told me those calls weren’t so important any more, but I didn’t like to leave the job half finished, so I tried again. It turned out she was the owner of the Dutch Warmblood mare. Miss Widdowson. She sounded a bit annoyed when I told her who I was.’
‘When did you speak to her?’ asked Fry.
‘Yesterday morning, while you were out with Gavin.’
‘I see. Well, she was annoyed because we’d just visited her and got her back up.’
‘Oh, of course.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Fry, ‘This Dutch — ’
‘Warmblood.’
‘What was its name?’
Cooper hesitated. He was always nervous when faced with that tense, expectant expression from Fry. Every time, he felt as though he might be going to let her down.
‘Its name?’ he said. ‘I didn’t ask.’
Fry groaned. ‘Who’s on duty this morning? Luke Irvine or Becky Hurst? Whoever it is, give them a call and get them to check. Right now, Ben.’
‘I’ll have to get out of these woods,’ said Cooper. ‘There’s no signal here. I’ll walk back down to the car.’
Almost as soon as Cooper had left her alone, Fry became aware of several figures in balaclavas appearing silently through the trees. They were carrying pickaxe handles and baseball bats. She stood facing them, hand on her extendable baton, ready to fight if necessary, but knowing there were too many of them.
Motion attracts, she kept telling herself. If you stay completely still, they don’t see you, even if you’re right out in the open. It’s movement that the eyes notice. The instincts of an animal. Motion attracts.
For two minutes, nothing seemed to happen. Fry tried to take in as many details as she could. Four men, she counted. Camouflage jackets, black balaclavas, only their eyes showing, like bank robbers anxious to avoid security cameras. But there were no cameras out here, no witnesses to identify them later. Only her.
Though it was broad daylight, and the woods couldn’t be more different from the back streets of Birmingham, her mind overlaid the scene with memories of a dark night. She felt as though she could sense other bodies, further back in the woods, watching, laughing, waiting eagerly for what would happen next. Voices murmuring and coughing in the darkness.
Something had stirred up the images that she always tried to keep buried. Today, once again, those dark forms seemed to loom around her, smudges of silhouettes that crept ever nearer, reaching out towards her. They merged with the trees, like creatures that had risen from the undergrowth.
She remembered the movements that crept and rustled closer, the reek of booze and violence. She was waiting for the taunting laughter, for that familiar voice to break into her mind, coarse and slurring in its Birmingham accent. ‘She’s a copper.’
Some form of communication seemed to take place between the men around her. One of them stared at her keenly, as if he knew her, or would know her again if he saw her.
And then they slipped away through the trees as quickly as they’d come. Fry breathed a sigh of relief, and realized that her hand was starting to cramp where it had been gripping the handle of her ASP.
She thought of calling in the incident. The group had been armed with baseball bats and pickaxe handles, after all. But her reluctance stemmed from her fear of being a bad witness, a dread of expending her colleagues’ time and effort for no worthwhile result.
She also knew she’d recognized the first man, just as he’d recognized her. She felt sure he was the same hunt steward who had stared at her on Tuesday as she’d waited for the hunt to go by.
But there was a difference. On Tuesday, she hadn’t been able to recall where she knew him from. Her powers of recognition had failed her.
This time, she knew who exactly he was.
‘Diane?’ The voice was Cooper’s, instantly reassuring.
‘I’m here.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Did you see them?’ she said. ‘The hunt stewards?’
‘No,’ said Cooper.
She stared at him, not sure whether she could believe him. Whose side was he on, after all? The realization that she had no one she could trust made her suddenly, irrationally angry.
‘Why did I come to this place? Why do I put up with these people?’ She gestured at the people down on the road, at the hunt kennels, at the whole world in general. ‘Horse-eating, fox-hunting, baseball-bat-wielding Neanderthals.’
Cooper gazed after her in amazement as she strode off. ‘That’s a bit unfair.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Diane,’ called Cooper, ‘don’t you want to know? Becky Hurst has come up with some information for us.’
Fry stopped. ‘And?’
‘We have to get moving, if we want to make a quick arrest.’
32
The A52 into Derby had been re-named Brian Clough Way some years ago, creating a fume-laden memorial to a legendary manager of Derby County Football Club. At the mere mention of his name, many people around here still shook their heads and said he should have been the England boss, if there’d been any justice in the world. But what a pity about the drink problem.
In light traffic, Cooper made the Pentagon roundabout in a few minutes, and turned o
ff past a Mercedes dealer, following signs into the Meadows industrial estate. Beyond a large car park stood a range of single-storey brick buildings with flat roofs — a plant centre, an equestrian supplies company, two firms of auctioneers, and the Meadows pub. The market was somewhere behind these buildings, occupying a stretch of ground between the railway sidings and the gravel pits.
‘Is this what I was called in for?’ said Gavin Murfin grumpily.
‘You were rostered on call, Gavin,’ said Cooper.
‘I know, but blimey — a horse auction?’
‘Diane has gone to the house herself. But the mother says they’ll be here. Don’t worry, we’ll get back-up if we need it.’
Chequers Road was a strange place for a cattle market. It stood in the middle of this industrial estate, surrounded by car showrooms. Horse owners had to reach it by battling through the Saturday traffic jams. Outside the Meadows pub, someone had put up posters warning of GM crop trials taking place in a secret location in Derbyshire. There was no date on the posters, but they were starting to fray at the edges. Cooper was pretty sure those trials had been abandoned a couple of years ago. Too much of a risk, even for the bravest farmer.
‘It’s a bit public for an arrest,’ said Murfin, as they entered the market itself, mingling with the crowds of buyers and sellers.
‘If we see them, we’ll wait until they’re back in the car park,’ said Cooper.
‘OK.’
Cooper walked along a line of tubular steel pens, glancing at the details attached to the front of each one: 15.2hh seven-year-old bay gelding Welsh cross, owner gone to college and has no time to ride. Labels with red numbers were gummed to the hindquarters of the horses. Some of the smaller ponies were dwarfed by the cattle pens. He reached through the bars to touch a soft nose, sensing the animal’s apprehension.
The typical cattle-mart smell of animal dung had begun to fill the air. Handfuls of horse hair lay in clumps on the concrete floors, combed out by owners wanting their animals to look their best in the sale ring. Some of the horses stood resignedly in a corner of a pen, others were clearly nervous, swinging restlessly from side to side as far as their halters would let them, scraping their hooves on the concrete as they shied away from potential buyers. An elegant yearling colt was tugging at his halter and whinnying.
‘No sign of them.’
In the pig building, an auctioneer in a white coat was selling saddles and tack, standing on a metal walkway over the pens. Another had begun to work his way through the farm implements lined up outside. Stalls were selling horse vitamins, hoof picks and blankets. From the back of a lorry, a youth was unloading nets of stock-feed carrots.
‘There’s plenty of intelligence on the Widdowsons in the system,’ said Cooper, ‘not to mention a few convictions for Rick Widdowson, Naomi’s brother.’
‘And they should be here?’
‘According to their mother.’
But the first market worker they spoke to just shook his head. ‘The Widdowsons? No, not today. They’re practically gippos, aren’t they? You’re more likely to see them at Appleby horse fair.’
The second person they asked was no more help than the first.
‘No. But if I do see them, I’ll act normal, shall I?’
‘Yes, that might be helpful, sir,’ said Cooper.
Fry was standing outside Long Acres Farm, listening to the mocking chatter of the jackdaws. A liveried police vehicle was drawn across the entrance to prevent anyone leaving, though she feared it might be too late.
Only the elderly mother was in the house, a cantankerous old woman in carpet slippers who could barely move across the room on her sticks. But a white Fiat was parked in the yard, which the PNC confirmed was registered to Naomi Widdowson. And beyond it, under the cover of a Dutch barn, was an old blue Land Rover belonging to the brother, Rick Widdowson.
Rick had quite a record. A series of minor assaults and convictions for criminal damage dating back to his early teens, and later public order offences and petty thefts that had barely let him stay out of prison. If the jails weren’t so full, he might not have had such luck, with a sheet of previous like that. As it was, Rick Widdowson was currently on probation, with a set of conditions. No wonder Naomi had assumed that the police had come looking for her brother.
Fry looked at the stables, with two horses’ heads hanging over the loose-box doors to see what was going on. And she corrected herself. In the circumstances, Naomi couldn’t possibly have assumed automatically that they’d come for Rick. It must have been a ploy on her part, a diversion to give an impression of her own innocence. Interesting that she’d drawn attention to her own brother to protect herself.
‘Are we going to search the outside premises, Sergeant?’ asked one of the uniformed officers from the response team.
‘Not until we have a few more bodies,’ said Fry. ‘There are too many outbuildings. Too many nooks and crannies. The three of us couldn’t possibly cover it.’
‘We might be here a while. It’s Saturday.’
‘I know.’
Fry wondered how Cooper and Murfin were getting on at the horse market. Last she’d heard, they were just waiting, as she was.
Then she looked at the stables again. She was trying to remember the details of her visit here yesterday with Gavin Murfin. She had a clear picture of Murfin standing in front of the loose boxes, clicking his tongue like an idiot, and asking the names of the horses. ‘ That’s Bonny at the end. Baby is the one in the middle. And the gelding is called Monty.’
Bonny, Baby, Monty. But there were only two heads watching her, with no sign of the gelding. Where was the third horse?
After half an hour, Ben Cooper and Gavin Murfin were still sitting in their car at the cattle market in Derby. People passed them clutching bags of carrots, bits of leather tack and hoof oil.
‘Hello, do we know them?’
Cooper jerked his head around at Murfin’s question, thinking he must be missing something. But he saw only a couple of women in denim jeans and body warmers who had stopped to stare at them.
‘You’re going to miss the Rams today, Gavin,’ said Cooper, relaxing again. ‘Aren’t they playing at home?’
‘I don’t care any more,’ said Murfin. ‘I’d rather support Nottingham Forest.’
‘Really? But you were always such a big Derby County fan.’
‘Until last season.’
‘Relegation from the Premiership? Or the new American owners?’
‘Both. And the team has been crap, too. Since the Americans came in, everyone calls them the Derby Doughnuts — because there’s always a hole through the middle.’
‘Is that what’s making you restless?’ said Cooper. ‘You haven’t been yourself for days.’
Murfin pulled a face. ‘Jean has made me go on a diet.’
Now that he thought about it, Cooper hadn’t seen Murfin snacking anything like so much as he used to. It must be the reason for Murfin’s strange behaviour all week.
‘And how do you feel?’ asked Cooper.
‘Terrible. I’ve got no energy. Nothing seems to matter any more. I really don’t want to go into the office on Monday.’
‘I suppose you could phone in sick.’
‘I’ve used up all my sick days. I’d have to phone in dead.’
Cooper dialled Fry’s number. ‘They’re still not here, Diane,’ he said. ‘We’ve been all round the cattle market. No sign of them. How long do you want us to wait?’
‘I think the mother has pulled a fast one on us,’ said Fry. ‘Head back and meet me at Long Acres Farm, soon as you can.’
If this had been Watersaw House, there would have been stable girls around to give Fry information, instead of just one bad-tempered old woman glaring at her from a side window of the house. And there might not have been quite so many muddy puddles for her to negotiate as she crossed the yard towards the stables, avoiding the drainage channel where dirty water swirled among little dams of straw.
Fry looked around the yard, with the stone house to one side and the stables on the other, the horses peering out at her from around their hay racks. Bonny and Baby, but no sign of Monty. She could picture the three of them practically mugging Gavin Murfin for some kind of tidbit. It was obviously what they had come to expect from visitors. So what could be of more interest to a horse than a stranger walking up to their stables?
Stepping carefully, Fry came nearer to the end loose box and edged along the wall. The top half of the door stood open, like all the others. If it hadn’t, she would have noticed something out of place sooner. She could hear faint stirrings from inside now, the sounds of an animal breathing noisily and pawing at the straw.
That was when Fry made her mistake. She flicked up the latch and flung the door open, bursting into the stable, her mouth open to start shouting the commands. For a second, she heard the two uniformed officers running towards her. But then the whole of her world was suddenly taken up by the huge, rearing animal in front of her, its eyes rolling in alarm, its nostrils flaring, its steel-shod hooves lashing out at the intruder. How could she have forgotten how big these animals were, how easily the impact of a steel shoe could crush a man’s skull?
Frantically, Fry tried to dive clear of the flying hooves. The last two things she remembered for a while were the thud of those hooves hitting the concrete wall, and the overpowering smell of wet horse.
Cooper and Murfin were on the A6 approaching Bakewell. As they passed Haddon Hall, still closed to visitors for the winter, they were held up at the turning to the huge car park for the agricultural business centre. Bakewell was always busy on a Saturday, no matter what the time of year.
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