Strawfoot

by David Hodges

  Kate winced and turned slowly to face the speaker, leaving Stacey to choke into the mug of coffee on his desk.

  The stocky balding man in the dark grey overcoat and pork-pie hat who stood there looked a bit like the soldier depicted on the First World War ‘Join Your Country’s Army’ posters than a police detective inspector. His greying Stalin moustache and heavy jowls quivered in time to a rapid gum-chewing motion and his dark, boot-button eyes studied her almost balefully from under bushy brows that looked as though they had never been trimmed. Detective Inspector Ted Roscoe was a formidable-looking individual and, approaching thirty years’ police service, the former marine was certainly not someone to trifle with – especially as he had recently set himself the task of giving up his addiction to cigarettes, which had not helped his truculent mood one little bit.

  ‘Morning, Guv,’ Kate said in a peculiar strangled voice. ‘Didn’t see you.’

  Roscoe nodded, shifting the gum in his mouth to the other cheek. ‘Obviously,’ he said. ‘And for your information, I’ve just been told that the missing girl has been found.’

  Kate nodded. ‘That’s good,’ she said.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ he snapped back. ‘They found her lying behind her dad’s tractor in the barn. She’s evidently been stiffed!’

  ‘Oh shit!’ Kate breathed.

  ‘Exactly,’ the DI agreed. ‘So get your coat.’

  A uniformed constable stood on guard in front of the single strand of blue and white ‘Police’ tape, which had been strung across the entrance to Lark Farm. Maybe they were on an economy drive, Kate mused cynically as she watched him unclip it from one of the gateposts to allow Roscoe’s old Honda Civic car through. Moments later, the DI swung in between a marked police Transit van and one of the department’s new CID cars parked at the front of the house and Kate climbed out with a sense of relief. Ted Roscoe was not the smoothest of drivers and, due to that and the state of some of the lumpy patched roads criss-crossing the Levels, it had been an uncomfortable near-white-knuckle ride. She was not looking forward to repeating the experience when they returned to the police station later.

  Yellow police crime scene tapes were in evidence across the open doorway of a Dutch barn to the right of the house and two horses peered curiously over adjacent stable doors in the block next door, seemingly savouring the fragile autumn sunlight that had replaced the mist of the previous night. Kate waited respectfully for Roscoe to free himself from the car’s twisted seatbelt before heading over there with him.

  Detective Constable Jimmy Ashton, unsurprisingly known to his colleagues as Ash, cut around from the side of the barn to meet them. ‘SOCO and pathologist on their way, Guv,’ he announced. ‘Best access to avoid fouling up the scene is down here.’

  He grinned at Kate, in spite of the circumstances, as he brushed past her to lead the way down the side of the building. ‘How’s Hayden’s poor little muscle, skipper?’ he chortled close to her ear.

  Kate treated him to a short hard stare. ‘About as good as yours will be if you keep on, Ash,’ she murmured with a tight smile, only too well aware that the news of her husband’s accident would already have been widely broadcast over the grapevine and the mickey-taking was only just beginning.

  Ash, unabashed and still smirking faintly, led them to a small door at the rear of the barn and, after first donning plastic overshoes, they stepped inside.

  The interior of the windowless building was lit by a pair of strip-lights. Bales of straw were stacked floor to roof on either side of the door and battered farm machinery, including a tractor, baler and a couple of trailers, occupied the far side. There was an old partially constructed Triumph motorcycle on a stand in the centre of the barn, with an open toolbox and what looked like a recently sprayed petrol tank on an oily floor littered with an assortment of spanners, wrenches and screwdrivers in front of it.

  Ash, no longer smirking, led the way across the barn to the far corner. Even before they got there, the humped shape was clearly visible in between the two trailers, and Kate’s mouth tightened.

  The body was that of a young girl, plainly a teenager, lying in a contorted position against the wheel of one of the trailers. She was naked from the waist down and wearing just a blue blouse, which seemed to have been deliberately pulled up over her breasts. Her head was bent back at an impossible angle, her feet crooked and the toes curled under them, digging into the bare earth in her final agonies. Closer examination revealed severe bruising to her throat and a film of blood obscuring the pupils of her distended eyeballs, suggesting she had been strangled. But her brutal killer had gone a stage further, displaying a macabre sense of humour by forcing what looked like a tiny straw figure into her mouth over her protruding tongue.

  ‘Merciful heavens!’ Kate breathed.

  Roscoe grunted. ‘Not much mercy shown here,’ he observed grimly and, bending over the corpse, peered closely at the dead girl’s face. ‘What the hell is that thing sticking out of her mouth?’

  ‘Corn dolly,’ Ash responded promptly.

  ‘A what?’

  Ash grimaced. ‘Corn dolly,’ he said. ‘Sort of folklore thing, I believe. You see them at craft fairs.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like a dolly to me.’

  ‘No, Guv, it’s called that but there are all sorts of types. I think they used to make them to promote the harvest – something like that.’

  ‘So why would someone stick one in a girl’s mouth?’

  ‘Dunno, Guv. It’s weird.’

  Roscoe grunted. ‘You can say that again. Who found her?’

  ‘Local uniform guy,’ Ash said. ‘Duncan Jones.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘About forty minutes ago. Carried out the usual misper premises search and spotted her immediately.’

  ‘Where are her clothes?’

  Ash flicked his head towards the other side of the barn. ‘Over there among those bales of straw – coat, jeans, pants and a pair of knee-length boots. Killer obviously dumped them there on his way out and there’s a trail of straw, obviously from his boots or shoes, leading to the main doors.’

  Roscoe glanced briefly in the direction he indicated. ‘Who identified the body?’

  ‘The brother, Guv – a Daniel Schofield.’

  ‘Anyone else living here?’

  ‘Just the mother and father apparently.’

  ‘Where are they all?’

  ‘In the house. In a hell of a state.’

  ‘Hardly surprising under the circumstances,’ Kate put in drily.

  ‘Not fit for interview then?’ Roscoe queried.

  Ash hesitated. ‘Parents, I would say no,’ he replied, ‘but the brother seems a bit more resilient from what I’ve seen of him.’

  ‘Resilient or guilty?’

  Ash looked shocked. ‘Can’t see him doing his own sister in, Guv.’

  ‘Can’t you?’ Roscoe growled. ‘Do this job long enough, Ash, and you’ll believe anyone is capable of anything.’

  He turned towards the side door of the barn through which they had entered. ‘Stay here to meet the SOCO team and the pathologist,’ he directed over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’

  Ash nodded and watched them leave before settling himself on to a nearby straw bale and shaking a cigarette out of a crumpled packet. It was going to be a long day; he could feel it in his water.

  The arrival of Roscoe and Lewis seemed to have passed unnoticed by the owners of the property but they were evidently spotted as they approached the front door. The tall muscular young man in the faded blue jeans and checked short-sleeve shirt opened up before they got to the step. His clean-shaven face was pale and his shoulder-length fair hair had obviously not yet seen a brush or comb that morning.

  ‘Daniel Schofield?’ Roscoe said quietly, and flashed his warrant card. ‘DI Roscoe and DS Lewis.’

  The young man nodded and stepped aside to allow them into the house. ‘You’ll have to speak to me,’ he mumbled. ‘Mum and Dad are—’ He broke
off with a helpless shrug.

  Roscoe removed his pork-pie hat and held it against his chest as they both accepted the invitation and stepped through the doorway into a square hallway with internal doors opening off on three sides. Indicating a door on the left, Schofield showed them into what seemed to be a study or office, furnished with a desk, swivel chair, steel filing cabinet and a wall of books and box files. Pictures of Herefordshire bulls and what were obviously thoroughbred horses occupied another wall and a glass cabinet in one corner displayed presentation cups and different coloured rosettes.

  The two detectives took it all in at a glance and Schofield nodded again. ‘Dad used to breed and show Herefordshires,’ he explained unnecessarily, ‘and he’s been into horses for about three years now.’ He hesitated. ‘Melanie used to ride too and—’ He broke off again, his voice ending in a strangled sob, tears filling his eyes as he tried to maintain masculine control.

  Kate’s mouth tightened, her chest also contracting painfully as she empathized with his distress. ‘We’re very sorry for your loss, Mr Schofield,’ she said. ‘We can’t begin to understand how you must be feeling.’

  Schofield stared at her for a moment, then nodded but stayed tight-lipped and silent.

  Roscoe seized the opportunity. ‘You reported your sister missing,’ he said, more as a statement than a question.

  Schofield took a deep breath, obviously fighting with his emotions. ‘She – she hadn’t come home by the time Mum and Dad returned from a night out,’ he replied, ‘and they were climbing the walls when I got back.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘About one in the morning.’

  ‘You were out late?’

  ‘Doing a gig in Taunton – I play bass guitar in a local group.’

  ‘And you reported it straightaway?’

  Schofield’s face hardened. ‘Tried to, but when I rang your headquarters, some dipstick there told me that, as she was eighteen, they couldn’t do anything. Force policy or something.’

  Kate frowned. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘He – he told me to ring again in the morning if she still hadn’t come home.’ He swallowed hard, choking back more tears. ‘And all the time she was lying in the barn like—’

  He was unable to complete the sentence and Kate winced. Sometimes police policies were difficult to explain, even if they were made for logical reasons but neither she or Roscoe tried.

  ‘You didn’t think of checking the barn yourself?’ the DI went on.

  Anger smouldered in Schofield’s blue eyes. ‘Why would I? She hadn’t come home, for frig’s sake. Why would I think she was in the barn?’

  Kate quickly changed the subject. ‘And you rang the police again?’

  Schofield took another deep breath. ‘About 7.30 this morning, yes. The local bobby came out and – and found her.’

  ‘An obvious question,’ Kate went on, ‘but have you any idea who could have done this awful thing?’

  Now Schofield’s eyes were really blazing. ‘Yeah, I have. Her friggin’ boyfriend, Ed Shearing, that’s who!’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  He snorted. ‘Bastard treated her like dirt. Always playing the field. I told her he was no good but she wouldn’t listen and she was out with him again last night.’

  ‘But why would he want to kill her?’

  He clenched and unclenched his hands, trembling with emotion. ‘Because he’s a nutter. Always looking at sick DVDs and he’s got a filthy temper. Belted her once. Told him if he did it again, I’d break his legs.’

  ‘But thumping someone is a lot different to killing them.’

  He glared at Kate, as if he felt she was trying to defend Shearing. ‘Maybe she wouldn’t let him have what he wanted, so he took it anyway, then did her in to shut her up.’

  ‘Do you know how she died?’ Roscoe put in again.

  Schofield nodded, and stared down at his feet. ‘I seen her,’ he muttered. ‘Copper asked me to – to—’

  ‘Identify her?’

  ‘Yeah,’ and he shuddered.

  ‘Did you see what she had in her mouth?’

  ‘Yeah, one of them corn dolly things.’

  ‘Do you know where it could’ve come from?’

  Schofield shook his head. ‘Never seen it before. They – they sell them in craft shops and places.’

  ‘So I believe. Any idea why someone would put it there or what it’s supposed to tell us?’

  ‘How could I? Some sick bastard.’

  His voice trailed off and Kate broke the awkward silence which followed. ‘Any chance of us seeing your parents, do you think?’

  He shook his head and took several deep breaths before he answered. ‘Doc’s put – put Mum under heavy sedation, so she’s in bed asleep, and Dad’s, well, conscious but completely out of it. Just – just sitting there staring into space. Even I can’t get through to him. You’ll have to come back when he’s sorted himself out.’

  ‘And when would you suggest?’

  Schofield shrugged miserably. ‘Maybe never. Doted on her. In his eighties now and it may finish him, I don’t know.’

  Roscoe nodded. ‘I’ll have someone give you a call later and see how things are.’

  ‘You do that, Inspector,’ Schofield said with renewed vigour as he followed them to the front door, then reached across to open it for them, ‘and you’d better get hold of that bastard, Shearing, before I do.’

  One foot over the step behind Kate, the DI swung around to face him, his dark boot-button eyes narrowed. ‘I suggest you leave things with us, Mr Schofield,’ he said, ‘or you could find yourself in a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Think I care?’ Schofield retorted. ‘Someone is going to pay for this.’

  And the front door slammed before Roscoe could respond.

  ‘Hot air?’ Kate murmured.

  ‘I hope so,’ Roscoe replied, ‘or we’ve got even more trouble on our hands.’

  CHAPTER 3

  T he scenes of crime officers turned up in a big white van, bearing the sign ‘Scientific Investigations’ on the side, half an hour after Kate and Roscoe had arrived and just moments before the appearance of the forensic pathologist.

  ‘Well, she’s certainly dead,’ Doctor Lydia Summers commented wryly after her preliminary examination of the corpse. ‘Not a very pleasant way to go either.’

  Roscoe fidgeted impatiently, switching chewing gum from one side of his mouth to the other as the scenes of crime officers in their white overalls moved about in the background like aliens from another world under the direction of the hawk-eyed crime scene manager. ‘So what can you tell me, Doc?’ he growled. ‘Apart from the bleeding obvious, that is?’

  Summers laughed, well used to the DI’s coarse, truculent manner after years working with the force. ‘Time of death, I would suggest, was about midnight—’

  ‘So ten hours ago?’ he cut in, looking at his watch.

  She nodded. ‘More or less, yes but I won’t be able to be more definite until the post mortem.’

  ‘At least we won’t need a PM for cause of death,’ he said drily. ‘And the motive looks clear enough to me too.’

  Summers nodded. ‘Looks like strangulation but not with a ligature. From the bruising, I would say the killer used his hands.’ She frowned. ‘But there are no obvious signs of sexual interference, if that’s what you’re suggesting, and I won’t be able to confirm one way or the other until the PM anyway.’

  Roscoe grunted. ‘So, if not sexual, what then?’

  Summers bent over the corpse again, her mop of tangled grey hair falling out of one side of her protective nylon hood and across her face. ‘Sadly, I don’t have my crystal ball with me,’ she said, ‘but it seems to me that a lot more violence was used than was necessary to achieve the death of this poor girl.’ She grimaced. ‘And the straw doll is a particularly sick feature. It appears to have been inserted with some force and I suspect we will find it has actually ruptured the trachea.’


  ‘Then we could be dealing with a psycho?’

  ‘Very possibly. I’m not a criminal psychologist – but whoever did this would certainly not be someone you would want to take home to your mother anyway.’

  ‘So, a random hit, d’ye think, or something more personal?’

  She shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘Hmm. Any other thoughts?’

  She smiled sweetly. ‘You mean, could I tell you the killer’s age, hair colour and inside leg measurement, Ted? Sorry but I’ve left my Sherlock Holmes detective manual at home with my crystal ball.’

  Roscoe scowled but ignored the sarcastic jibe. ‘And this PM, when’s that likely to be?’

  Summers straightened up and turned towards the barn doors. ‘Seeing as it’s you, Ted, I’ll try and slot it in for tomorrow afternoon, OK?’

  Roscoe grunted. ‘Look forward to it,’ he said, matching her sarcasm with some of his own.

  Ed Shearing lived with his elderly mother in a neat detached house in Wedmore and was lounging on the settee, barefoot and dressed in just a pair of washed-out blue jeans, when Ted Roscoe and Kate Lewis were shown into the living room by his mother. The television was on full blast and he hardly seemed to notice their arrival, throwing them just a cursory half-amused glance before returning his gaze to the 44-inch screen and a can of Coca-Cola he was nursing in his lap.

  A tall skinny youth in his early twenties – his ribs were so prominent it would have been possible to count them – he had brooding brown eyes, close-cropped black hair and the sort of pointed features and pale spotty complexion that gave Kate cause to wonder what on earth could have attracted Melanie Schofield to him in the first place.

  ‘Police officers, dear,’ his mother said. ‘Detective Inspector Roscoe and Detective Sergeant Lewis. They want to talk to you.’

  Shearing grunted, his gaze remaining fixed on the television, which was showing some sort of discussion programme. ‘Do they?’ he retorted in a tired drawl. ‘Well, maybe I don’t want to talk to them?’

  He was well spoken, suggesting he had received a first-class education but there was an inbuilt sneer in the tone, which came across as arrogance.