Fate Worse Than Death

by Sheila Radley

  ‘Perhaps that’s the explanation,’ said Quantrill. ‘That it’s Saturday afternoon, I mean. Some kind of sporting fixture, maybe – motor-bike scrambling, something like that.’

  The two detectives studied the map. The whole area had once belonged, at a time when it was useful for nothing but game shooting, to the Fodderstone Hall estate, and the old names on the map were evocative: Earl’s Ride, Countess Covert, Brandon Heath, Prince Albert’s Plantation; and Black-rabbit Warren, Fowlmere, Woodcock Hill, Curlew Lodge.

  ‘This Curlew Lodge place,’ said Quantrill, pointing with a pencil to an isolated black dot on the map. It was just outside the battle area, on the northern edge of the heath that Tait had referred them to. ‘It can’t be much of a dwelling, or its shape would be outlined on the map. Possibly it was built out there just as a place where the old shooting-parties could have a warm-up and eat their grub. It’s probably in ruins now – but if those vehicles Martin saw were making for anywhere, that must have been it.’

  He chewed the end of his pencil. ‘I wonder … how many vehicles, did you say? Hmm. Twenty isn’t much of an attendance at any sporting fixture – unless of course it was by invitation only … Some form of indoor entertainment, perhaps?’

  Sergeant Lloyd looked at him quickly. ‘First Sandra Websdell, now Annabel Yardley?’

  ‘It’s worth investigating. Get someone in uniform to take over this incident room, Hilary. I’ll call in a couple of cars to follow us, and we’ll go and take a look at Curlew Lodge.’

  The un-signposted side road they turned on to, about five miles north of Fodderstone, had once been metalled. Grass was now growing along the middle of it. On the left was the heath, a relic of the original Breckland wastes, rusty with heather and thinly scattered with hawthorn bushes and birch trees. On the right was a harvested field, blackened by fires from which smoke was still drifting.

  A belt of Scots pine at right angles to the road marked the boundary of the arable land. Once they were through the trees there was heath on either side of the road, which had now deteriorated into a dusty track. Half a mile ahead, a dark stand of conifers on Ministry of Defence land blocked the way completely.

  But on this side of the conifers, with their windscreens setting up a dazzle as they caught the late afternoon sun, stood the vehicles the detectives had come to find. A piece of heathland had been levelled and hardcore had been put down to provide an all-weather parking area. It was completely full, with more than twice the number of vehicles Tait had seen.

  Quantrill stopped his car across the track, blocking the escape route of everything except Land Rovers and motorbikes. He got out. Hilary followed, carrying a clipboard, and they searched among the vehicles for the makes and registration numbers they wanted.

  They were all there: Howard Braithwaite’s nearly new Rover 2600, Phil Goodwin’s rusting Cortina, the Japanese pick-up trucks owned by Stan Bolderow and Reg Osler. Of the Flintknappers Arms regulars, only Charley Horrocks was wheelless; but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there too.

  ‘They couldn’t have chosen a more isolated place, if this is where they kept Sandra Websdell,’ said Hilary, looking at the building on the far side of the car park. It was an old single-storey barn, its flint walls solid, its pantiled roof showing signs of recent repair. The heavy wooden door, now wide open, looked brand new. ‘And perhaps it’s where they’re keeping Annabel Yardley now … but what in God’s name are they doing?’

  Curlew Lodge seemed to be throbbing with noise. The emanation was so powerful that Quantrill almost expected to see short straight lines radiating from the building, as in a cartoonist’s sketch. The basic source of the throb, he decided, must be a diesel generator somewhere on the far side of the barn. But coming from the building itself was the roar of excited masculine voices, urging something or someone on.

  ‘You’d better get back in the car, Hilary,’ said Quantrill. ‘Whatever it is, it’s a stag event. I’ll try to go in as a punter, and if they see you they’ll immediately be suspicious. Call up the other cars, and – quick, get down, there’s somebody coming out.’

  A heavily built man had just erupted unsteadily from the barn doorway. Quantrill hurried towards him. ‘Not too late, am I?’ he called. ‘It’s not over, is it?’

  ‘No – got to go for a leak, I’m bursting!’ The man was sweating copiously, his jowls dripping, his shirt saturated, whisky on his breath. His bloodshot eyes glistened with excitement, and there was a stupid grin on his face as he made his way round to the back of the barn.

  The Chief Inspector kept him company. A young man was already there, crouched on the ground vomiting, but the two older men ignored him.

  ‘Worth coming all this way, then?’ said Quantrill.

  ‘I’ll say! I’ve come up from Essex – used to do business with Howard Braithwaite, and he gave me the word. God, the money that’s flying about in there!’

  ‘High stakes?’

  ‘I’ll say! But all properly organized, with a bookmaker Howard’s roped in. The whole set-up’s first class. Local pub landlord’s got a bar going, pricey of course but well stocked. A tenner to get in, mind, but what the hell – it’s only money.’

  Quantrill agreed, hoping that he had that much in his back pocket. He’d left his wallet in his coat in the car, and he didn’t want to lose contact with his new acquaintance while he fetched it.

  ‘First time you’ve been here?’ he asked as they walked back round the building.

  ‘No, I came on Tuesday evening for the trial run. I was in Breckham Market on business, so I thought I’d see whether it would be worth coming up again today. And it was! The wife thinks I’m playing golf, o’course …’

  ‘Many people here on Tuesday?’

  ‘Mainly Howard and the locals – Phil who runs the bar, and a few others.’

  ‘Can you remember who they were?’

  The florid man lurched to a stop, putting a hand against the flints of the barn wall to support himself. He looked at Quantrill with suspicion, squinting against the sun. ‘What’s it to you?’ he asked with slurred aggressiveness.

  The Chief Inspector showed him his warrant card. The man peered at it, trying to focus. Then he slumped back against the wall. ‘Oh my God …’

  ‘You’re small fry,’ said Quantrill. ‘I’m not interested in you. Just tell me who was here on Tuesday – if you don’t know their names, describe them.’

  The florid man mumbled brief descriptions. Two of the men Quantrill didn’t recognize; but the others were unmistakably Charley Horrocks, Stan Bolderow and Reg Osler.

  Quantrill handed over his informant to Sergeant Lloyd, went up to the barn and paid his money at the door to a swarthy man he didn’t know.

  ‘Who’s your contact?’ asked the doorman warily.

  ‘Howard Braithwaite.’

  The doorman nodded him in. ‘You’ll find Howard in his office behind the bar – he keeps his eyes on the money, not on the action! You’ve just missed the video, but the live action’ll start again in a few minutes.’

  The Chief Inspector stepped inside the barn and immediately became engulfed in heat and noise. The place was heaving with men, all of them on some kind of high.

  At first, Quantrill found it difficult to see through the gloom. Any natural light in the building had been blocked off. Electric fans whirred overhead, but all they were doing was stirring up smells of tobacco and sweat and alcohol. There were also other smells that he couldn’t immediately identify, stomach-contracting whiffs of something degradingly earthy.

  The interior of the barn was arranged like a three-sided boxing arena, with rows of seats facing a small, raised, spotlit ring. On the far wall was a large video screen, now blank. Below the screen, on a platform beside the ring, was a bookmaker’s stand.

  The bookie was hard at work, bawling the odds on the next piece of action. Shirt-sleeved punters milled about, placing bets, buying drinks, shouting to make themselves heard. Quantrill caught a glimpse of Phil Goodwi
n behind the bar, serving flat out and flushed with money-making success; and a more distant glimpse of Howard Braithwaite, aloof from the activity but showing signs of satisfaction at having master-minded it.

  A buzzer sounded. Punters hurried for their seats. And there at the ringside, unshaven, red-faced, gleeful in anticipation of the spectacle about to be presented, was Charley Horrocks; beside him, Bolderow and Osler.

  Got them, thought Quantrill with grim satisfaction. Whatever they’ve done to Sandra Websdell and Annabel Yardley, at least we’ve got the lot of’em red-handed.

  A second spotlight illuminated the high, wired-in ring. The spectators hushed, tense with excitement. Bodies leaned forward, eyes gleamed, lips were compulsively licked.

  In the hush, an unseen cockerel began to crow.

  Chapter Thiryt Six

  Chief Inspector Quantrill drove away from Curlew Lodge in a bad temper. He was disgusted by what he had seen, and furious because he felt that he had been conned; so furious that he had left it to his back-up team to sort out the punters. All he wanted to do at the moment was to get away from Howard Braithwaite – and from Goodwin and Osler and Bolderow and Charley Horrocks – as quickly as possible.

  ‘I do believe you’re disappointed,’ Hilary Lloyd accused him as, muttering crossly, he drove at a jolting speed over the rough track. ‘What did you expect to see? Bestiality? Gang rape? Women wrestling in mud?’

  ‘Nothing of the sort,’ Quantrill growled. ‘I’d hoped to find Annabel Yardley, that’s all. This whole episode, coming in the middle of our enquiry into Sandra Websdell’s death, has been a complete waste of time.’

  ‘We weren’t to know that. It was sheer bad luck that the Flintknappers Arms gang should have been holding their trial run on Tuesday evening, just at the time of Sandra’s death. And that they couldn’t admit what they’d been up to, because it’s illegal and they’d intended to make a regular practice of it. Would it really have paid off for them, though, do you think? They must have made a big investment, and their running expenses would have been pretty high.’

  ‘Oh, Braithwaite would have costed it out, you can be sure of that. He’s a businessman, he knew what he was doing. He must have calculated that the combination of gambling and blood-sport would bring enough big spenders to make the risk worth while.’

  ‘I still don’t understand’, said Hilary, who hadn’t entered the barn until after the Chief Inspector had put a stop to the contest, ‘how the cocks can be persuaded to fight.’

  ‘These aren’t ordinary domestic roosters,’ said Quantrill impatiently. ‘They belong to special breeds – I saw some illustrations in the cock-fighting chapter of the book Braithwaite had at his boathouse. Apparently they’re bred for strength and aggressiveness.’

  ‘Who was handling them, then? I can’t imagine –’

  ‘No, it wasn’t any of the Flintknappers Arms lot. The entertainment was arranged by an unsavoury pair of brothers from somewhere down in Essex, who breed the birds. It seems they’ve been hooked on cockfighting since they saw it in the Canary Islands, where it’s legal. That’s where they got the idea of using a ring rather than a cock-pit – it gives the punters a better view. They’d also brought some films of cockfights to pad out the live action.

  ‘The whole thing was thoroughly organized. The brothers had a set of scales, and the birds were matched by weight, like boxers. I didn’t stay to find out how many birds had been brought here this afternoon, but I can’t imagine there’d have been many to take back. They fight to the death, and the winner I saw was so badly injured that I wouldn’t give much for its chances of survival.’

  Hilary expressed her disgust on behalf of the birds, and Quantrill said no more. He was very glad that she hadn’t been present at the fight. His own stomach had almost been turned, as much by the stench of the droppings that covered the ring as by the flying blood and feathers of the cocks themselves. The cruelty involved – the deliberate goading of the birds by their handlers at the start of the bout, the cutting and taping of their viciously sharp natural spurs so that the fights would be bloodily prolonged – was sickening.

  But what disturbed Quantrill more than the suffering of the birds was the effect on the spectators themselves. Even though he could remember the excitement of being one of a hunting pack, the insidious lure of cruelty, he had been taken aback by the blood-lust of these punters. There they were – respectable businessmen for the most part, probably pet-lovers, kind fathers, decent husbands – howling instructions to the bird their money was on to savage its opponent, slash out its eyes, kill, kill, kill.

  Cockfighting was bound to brutalize its spectators. And people who became brutalized – hooked on the excitement of seeing blood spilled, the spectacle of mutilation and pain – could in time become bored with the same old entertainment. Then, Quantrill feared, they might start to look for alternative victims, greater excitement, more blood, more obvious pain; and God knew where that kind of search might lead. Having learned, with difficulty, to control his own youthful propensity towards impulsive violence, he was angered at having witnessed a commercially engineered breakdown of civilized behaviour. Just as well, then, that this Fodderstone set-up had been discovered before it became established.

  The penalties for illegal cockfighting, and for causing unnecessary suffering to animals, were regrettably minor: fines, that was all. But the case should attract a good deal of adverse publicity in the national as well as the local press, and Braithwaite would hate that. The Essex police would clamp down on the breeders, and none of the Fodderstone men would be likely to try it again. So perhaps, concluded the Chief Inspector, his ill-temper abating, this had been a useful week’s work after all.

  He must remember to make a point of letting the Assistant Chief Constable know that a good deal of the credit belonged to young Martin Tait.

  ‘At least,’ said Quantrill as he turned on to the metalled road and drove more circumspectly towards civilization, ‘we know now that the Flintknappers Arms mob weren’t involved in Sandra Websdell’s death. We’re back with the probability that she was abducted just before her wedding by someone who wanted her for himself. I know you liked him, so I don’t suppose you’ll agree with me, but I think – despite his denials – that it must have been Christopher Thorold. With or without his father’s knowledge.’

  ‘I don’t want it to be Christopher,’ admitted Hilary. ‘He and his Pa are so much nicer than any of the Flintknappers Arms lot. But I’m afraid you’re right.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about the Websdells’garden gnome,’ she went on, ‘and the story Andrew Stagg told you about the Hooray Henries finding it on the Saturday after Sandra disappeared. As you pointed out, we know that the gnome was taken from the garden on the Friday – and according to Mrs Websdell it was completely undamaged when it was taken. Whoever took it on the Friday night must have kept it for about twenty-four hours, during which time it was damaged, and then brought it back and left it by the gate shortly before the Henries arrived.’

  Quantrill agreed. ‘But where’s the connection with the Thorolds?’

  ‘In their yard, I think. When I first saw the gnome, after it had finally been rescued, there were loose fragments of plaster crumbling away from its damaged leg. The plaster was touched with green and red paint, and I’m sure I saw some similar fragments at the Thorolds’. Do you remember when Christopher took us to the barn? The three of us were talking, outside, and he suddenly took a long step forward for no apparent reason, and started shuffling his boots about. That was when I caught a glimpse of the colours, before he covered them with dust.’

  Quantrill allowed the car to roll to a stop, and switched off the engine. They were on the outskirts of Fodderstone village, and the sun was disappearing in an evening haze somewhere behind the chimney pots of the Flintknappers Arms.

  ‘If we find plaster fragments there it would prove that Thorold had the gnome on his property,’ he conceded. ‘But would that help us? We’re not enq
uiring into the abduction of a stupid gnome.’

  ‘No. But it’s made me convinced, in my own mind, that Christopher abducted Sandra. This is speculation, I admit. But only someone like Christopher would have imagined that he could abduct the girl and then talk her into staying with him. And I think that when he couldn’t persuade her to co-operate – when she had to be tethered to stop her running away – he might well have decided to fetch something familiar for her, from her home, in an attempt to please her.’

  Quantrill rubbed his chin. ‘Yes, I can believe that’s the sort of thing Thorold might do. And he took it back again because, presumably, Sandra rejected it?’

  ‘Can you blame her? From what I’ve heard, she had plenty of spirit. If I’d been her, tied up by a man who tried to placate me by bringing me a garden ornament, I’d have thrown it at him.’

  ‘I daresay you would,’ said Quantrill.

  ‘And that,’ said Hilary, avoiding his over-appreciative eye, ‘is how I think the gnome came to be damaged. If Sandra did throw it at him, from inside the barn, it would probably have smashed down just about where I saw the fragments of coloured plaster. And that’s what makes me sure that the Thorolds’barn is where she was held captive.’

  ‘We’d have had that barn thoroughly searched long before now,’ grumbled Quantrill, ‘if we hadn’t been mesmerised by the blasted Flintknappers Arms mob. And,’ he remembered, ‘if we hadn’t tied up all our manpower in the search for Mrs Yardley. How long’s she been missing for?’

  ‘About thirty-six hours.’

  ‘Too long. If she was lying out in the open after being thrown, she’d have been found by now. Right – all the more reason for us to go and talk to the Thorolds. If Christopher abducted Sandra, the chances are that he took Annabel Yardley as well.’

  ‘But she isn’t in his barn, we know that.’