Strawfoot

by David Hodges

  His mother smiled nervously, wringing her hands but did not answer him. ‘I’ll – I’ll leave Edward with you,’ she said to Roscoe. ‘Er, would you like some tea?’

  ‘Just piss off, will you, woman?’ Shearing snapped over one shoulder. ‘The plods aren’t getting any bloody tea – or anything else for that matter.’

  Roscoe scowled, waiting until the elderly lady had withdrawn, closing the door after her. ‘Not a very nice way to speak to your mother,’ he growled.

  Shearing eased himself up into a sitting position and treated the DI to a contemptuous stare. ‘What’s it to you, Sherlock?’ he retorted and belched on the can of coke as he turned his attention back to the television.

  Kate watched Roscoe’s face darken and winced. Shearing wasn’t getting off to a very good start with her boss and that was inadvisable.

  ‘Would you turn the television off for a few moments, Mr Shearing?’ Kate said quickly. ‘We would like to have a chat with you.’

  Shearing looked her up and down and smirked. ‘Why should I?’ he said without making any move towards the remote on the arm of the settee.

  Roscoe stepped forward, grabbed the remote himself and shut the television down. ‘Because we say so,’ he grated.

  Shearing shot up in his seat, his eyes blazing. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ he shouted. ‘You can’t tell me what I can and cannot do in my own house—’

  ‘This isn’t your house – it’s your mother’s,’ the DI cut in, ‘and the television stays off, whether you like it or not.’

  Shearing jumped to his feet. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he snarled, and turned for the door. ‘My uncle is a bloody lawyer.’

  The way Roscoe was built, he didn’t seem equipped for speed but he moved pretty fast now and Shearing bounced off him as if he had hit a wall, collapsing back on to the settee with a gasp of escaping wind.

  Kate turned to look out of the bay window as Roscoe bent over him, one meat-hook gripping his chin and his little boot-button eyes trained on his face like twin pistol muzzles. ‘Listen to me, you little shit,’ he said. ‘I’m not here to play games with you. I haven’t the time or the inclination. So you will sit here and answer our questions until we decide we’ve heard enough. Capisce?’

  The Adam’s apple was jerking up and down in Shearing’s throat as if it was trying to play a tune and his face had grown even paler than before, if that were possible. When Roscoe finally released his chin and straightened up, he sat there staring at him in an obvious state of shock.

  ‘First off,’ Roscoe began, ‘we did a check on you on our way here and it seems you have quite a bit of form, Mr Shearing. Criminal damage, possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply, taking and driving away, assault occasioning actual bodily harm – not a bad list for a twenty-three-year-old ex-public schoolboy, is it?’

  Shearing started to say something, his gaze still riveted on Roscoe’s face but somehow he couldn’t get the words out and he swallowed several times instead.

  ‘And, from what I hear, you also like knocking your girlfriend about?’ the DI went on.

  Shearing found his tongue and shook his head. ‘I never really hit her,’ he blurted. ‘But she’s an air-head. Gets hysterical sometimes and needs to be brought to her senses.’ He stared past him at Kate and then back at the DI, his eyes wild. ‘Is that why you’re here – because she’s made a complaint? Listen, she hit me first. That’s why I dumped her. It was only a slap anyway—’

  ‘Dumped her?’ Kate echoed, turning to face him again.

  Shearing nodded quickly. ‘She went crazy when I said I wanted to finish with her,’ he lied, ‘then she just stormed off. What could I do?’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘About – about eleven last night. We were at a party at my mate’s house near where she lives – guy called Josh Turner. It was his birthday bash.’

  Kate’s eyes hardened. ‘You mean you let an eighteen-year-old girl walk home on her own at eleven at night?’

  He was immediately on the defensive. ‘It – it wasn’t that far – just on the other side of the village. Anyway, what was I supposed to do?’

  Neither of the two police officers said anything and Shearing went back to his nervous swallowing, his wide-eyed gaze flicking to each of them in turn again. ‘Look,’ he blurted suddenly, ‘what is this? I hardly touched her. If she said I did, then she’s lying—’

  ‘She’s not in a position to say anything,’ Kate said coldly. ‘She was murdered last night.’

  Shearing sat bolt upright on the settee again. ‘Murdered?’ he choked. ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No joke, Mr Shearing,’ Roscoe said. ‘Someone killed her last night and we intend finding out who.’

  ‘But when – where? This doesn’t make sense.’ Shearing gaped as the light of understanding dawned in his eyes. ‘Hey, you’re not accusing—? Listen, I didn’t – you’ve got to believe me. I mean, why would I?’

  He was halfway to his feet again but Roscoe pushed him back down in the settee. ‘Maybe you wanted sex and she wouldn’t give it to you?’ he suggested.

  ‘Or your argument went too far and you lost it – or both?’ Kate added. ‘Is that what happened, Mr Shearing? She maddened you and you wanted to teach her a lesson but you decided to have a bit of fun with her first – or did that come afterwards?’

  ‘You’re sick!’ Shearing choked. ‘I never touched her. She walked out on me and that was the last time I saw her. It’s the truth.’

  ‘What time did you get home?’ Roscoe queried.

  Shearing looked confused and he ran a hand over his hair, shaking his head and starting to hyperventilate. ‘One-thirty, quarter to two, I don’t know,’ he replied.

  ‘Can your mother vouch for that?’

  He shrugged miserably. ‘She – she takes sleeping tablets.’

  ‘What about the others at the party?’ Kate put in. ‘Would they remember when you left?’

  He shook his head. ‘Unlikely. Most of them were out of their heads by then.’ Then there was the sudden spark of hope in his eyes and he snapped his fingers. ‘Wait a minute, I remember now. Josh turfed me and his sister out of one of the bedrooms when the party started to break up. Said it was after one and time I was going.’

  ‘And what were you doing in the bedroom?’

  Shearing treated her to an unpleasant sneer. ‘What do you think? It wasn’t sleeping anyway.’

  Kate flushed, feeling suddenly naive. ‘So while you left your girlfriend to walk home on her own, you were shafting someone else, is that it?’

  For a moment Shearing seemed taken aback by her choice of words, then he shrugged. ‘Life moves on,’ he replied, adding, ‘but if you want to confirm it with Josh, his place is called Shenanigans. It’s on the main road, just outside the village.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Shearing,’ Roscoe said. ‘We will. Now, can we take a look in your room?’

  Kate waited for Shearing to demand to see a warrant but he didn’t. Shock had obviously set in, numbing his natural hostility, and he just shrugged. ‘My mother’ll show you,’ he said and he didn’t even stare after them as they headed for the door.

  Mrs Shearing must have been eavesdropping because she was hovering in the hallway when they went through and she looked more than a little startled when they confronted her. But she recovered quickly and led the way upstairs without even being asked.

  The bedroom was at the back of the house and little more than a box room, about seven feet square. It contained a single unmade bed, a chest of drawers and a built-in wardrobe. The walls were plastered with rock and heavy metal posters and the moment they stepped inside the room, a big, black tropical spider studied them from among the debris of a glass aquarium standing on top of the chest of drawers.

  Kate knew what Roscoe was looking for and felt sure he would be disappointed. Her assumption proved to be correct. A check of the wardrobe and chest of drawers, after Mrs Shearing had gone back downstairs, prod
uced nothing of consequence, save the usual clothing and some graphic pornographic magazines and DVDs but there were no corn dollies.

  ‘Daniel Schofield was right when he said Shearing was sick,’ Kate commented, studying the cover of one of the DVDs with obvious distaste.

  Roscoe finished checking under the bed, hauled himself up off his knees and went over to her.

  The DVD depicted a naked woman kneeling on the floor of a shadowy room, with a noose around her neck, the other end grasped tightly in the hand of a hooded man wearing a black gown.

  ‘Bondage, eh?’ he commented. ‘Still, no law against it, is there? Consenting adults and all that?’

  Kate snorted. ‘Shows the man’s a pervert, though, which could be relevant to murder.’

  Roscoe shrugged and turned for the door. ‘You’d have a job convincing a jury,’ he retorted, then grinned suddenly. ‘Who’s to say what folk get up to on the quiet in their own homes? Maybe even on their honeymoons, eh?’

  Kate returned the DVD to the top drawer of the chest of drawers and shut it with a loud bang, glaring at her boss with undisguised hostility but Roscoe’s grin was gone almost as soon as it was born.

  Shearing was still sitting upright on the settee when they returned to the living room, staring at the carpet. He had lit a cigarette and was trying to smoke the thing, holding it between two trembling fingers.

  ‘We’ll be in touch, Mr Shearing,’ Roscoe advised, ‘but don’t go on any long foreign holidays in the meantime, will you? We might want to talk to you again.’

  Shearing turned to stare at them. ‘So how did she die?’ he demanded hoarsely.

  ‘Can’t tell you that,’ Kate answered.

  ‘But – but where was she found?’

  ‘Can’t tell you that either at the moment.’

  Shearing scowled at her. ‘You bastards can’t tell me much at all, can you?’ he snarled, some of his courage returning.

  ‘Maybe we wouldn’t have had to tell you anything if you had done the proper thing and seen Melanie safely home in the first place,’ Roscoe retorted, nodding Kate towards the front door. ‘Just think on that.’

  CHAPTER 4

  T he major incident room was still being set up under the direction of an advance party from the Major Crime Investigation Unit when Ted Roscoe and Kate Lewis returned to Highbridge police station and the DI scowled his irritation as he pushed through the double doors into the huge room, then quickly about-turned, narrowly tripping over computer cables on the way out.

  ‘My own office,’ he said to Kate out of the corner of his mouth, ‘away from this madhouse.’

  Kate grinned, following him downstairs to the station’s criminal investigation department. Ted Roscoe was old school – an instinct and shoe-leather man – and he would never come to terms with the modern high-tech police service, with its databases, linked computer systems and specialist investigation teams. A good old-fashioned copper, he got results through experience, gut reaction and sheer tenacity and, while he had to work in the brave new world, nothing would convince him to throw in his lot with it.

  ‘So,’ he said, pushing out a chair for his favourite DS – though he would never admit it – and dropping into the swivel chair behind his desk, ‘what do you think?’

  Kate frowned. ‘Well, I don’t reckon the brother had anything to do with it,’ she said. ‘His shock was too genuine. And why would he stiff his sister in their own barn? Doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘And the boyfriend?’ Roscoe continued, watching her through hooded eyes as he knocked a cigarette out of a packet on the table and lit up.

  ‘Thought you were packing that in, Guv?’ she queried, frowning her opposition.

  He scowled. ‘So did I,’ he retorted. ‘Now, the boyfriend, what do you reckon?’

  Kate shook her head in resignation, then shrugged. ‘A nasty bit of work and obviously a weirdo but I don’t see him as a killer. He was obviously shocked when he heard what had happened to her. Anyway, he was hardly likely to have driven her home and then attacked her in the family’s own barn, was he? Much too risky. He could have carted her off anywhere in his car.’

  Roscoe grunted. ‘Unless it was a spontaneous thing,’ he said. ‘Maybe he did see her home but just lost it when he tried it on in the barn? We know he’s got a violent temper.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Feasible but I don’t buy it. I didn’t like the little toe-rag but I have to say I think he was telling the truth. They had a row at the party – more than likely over the Turner girl – and she stormed out, as he claimed. Then someone else did the business on her.’

  Roscoe blew smoke rings, ignoring Kate’s look of disgust.

  ‘Someone from the party, do you think? Maybe even this Josh Turner himself? It would have been easy to slip out and back again without being noticed.’

  ‘Unlikely. Why would the killer wait until she got home before making his move? Plenty of places en route for a quick knee-trembler – especially along the lane to her house.’

  ‘Maybe he offered to see her home in the first place? Grabbed the opportunity when she stormed out of the party?’

  ‘Possible but the same argument applies – he would hardly have waited until they got to her house before attacking her. After all, how could he have known whether or not her parents or brother would be there?’

  He grunted again. ‘We’ll need to interview everyone who was at the party in due course anyway – soon as we have the full team up and running. But if that draws a blank, it means we’re left with the prospect of a random killer – someone who just happened to be wandering about in the vicinity of her home when she got back – and that is even less likely.’

  ‘Could have been a neighbour returning home at the same time? Sees her, feels a bit fruity and follows her up the driveway?’

  ‘What neighbour? From what I saw of the scene, there aren’t any – just a collection of outlying farms, miles apart. We’ll have to do house-to-house inquiries, of course but it’s unlikely that will turn up anything.’

  Kate chewed her lip. ‘The corn dolly has to mean something. No one sticks one of those into a stiff’s mouth just for the fun of it. There has to be a reason.’

  Roscoe stubbed out his cigarette in a tin lid and slipped a fresh piece of chewing gum in his mouth instead. ‘OK, so, what sort of a reason? A message? A warning? Witchcraft? Black magic? And why now particularly?’

  ‘Could be someone is trying to put us off the scent. The corn dolly might be just embellishment. But we won’t be able to come to any real conclusions about anything until we have a full forensics report on the crime scene examination and Dr Summers has done her stuff at the PM tomorrow.’

  ‘Agreed but we do need to see Melanie Schofield’s parents as soon as possible and take a look in the girl’s bedroom. Should have forced the issue when we were there earlier.’

  ‘They won’t be much good to us if they’re still out of it.’

  ‘Maybe but it still has to be done.’

  ‘I could try later this afternoon?’

  Roscoe nodded. ‘That would be good. Before that, though, try and get hold of this Josh Turner bloke. See if he can verify what time Shearing left the party and how long after Melanie Schofield. You’ll also need to get a list of the other party-goers. When you’ve done that, check the internet and also pop into our brand new community library and see if you can do a bit of research on corn dollies. What they mean, who still makes them, where you get them etc., etc.’

  ‘Is that all?’ she queried with heavy sarcasm. ‘OK if I have a bite to eat somewhere along the way?’

  He grinned, sensing her resentment. ‘As long as you can fit it in,’ he said, then snapped his fingers. ‘Oh yes, and don’t forget the first team briefing is at 1800 hours. So don’t be late.’

  Josh Turner lived in a large, expensive-looking modern house on the outskirts of the village and Kate noted, with a touch of envy, the two BMW cars parked alongside each other in the driveway at the
side, one silver and one black. Poor little rich kids, she thought sourly and hammered the wrought-iron knocker with a lot more force than was needed. Even so, it was a while before anyone came and when they did, it was a thirty-something man, with blond shoulder-length hair, wrapped none too well in a faded blue dressing gown. For a moment he simply gaped at her across the doorstep, his bleary blood-shot eyes trying to focus on the warrant card held up in front of him.

  ‘Mr Josh Turner?’ Kate encouraged.

  He emerged from his semi-trance-like state with a lop-sided grin. ‘The very same,’ he said.

  Kate nodded. ‘Detective Sergeant Kate Lewis,’ she said. ‘Highbridge Major Crime Investigation Unit. May I come in?’

  His grin faded and he looked puzzled. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘Hopefully not,’ she replied sharply and pushed past him into the hallway.

  The reason for Turner’s hesitation became apparent as soon as Kate entered the living room. The place looked as though it had been trashed by experts. Bottles, cans and broken glasses lay all over the place and there was a vivid red stain on the fawn carpet that she doubted even the expertise of professional carpet cleaners would be able to remove entirely. Cushions and pillows were strewn everywhere too and, even after the elapse of so many hours, a sweet nauseating smell hung in the air, which she recognized immediately as cannabis.

  ‘Bit of a mess, eh?’ Turner grudgingly admitted before Kate could pass an opinion. ‘It was a bit of a wild night.’

  ‘So I see,’ Kate commented drily. ‘Did Ed Shearing ring you?’

  She watched the answer flicker in his eyes for a moment.

  ‘Ed?’ he echoed. ‘Er – yes, he may have done. Can’t remember.’

  ‘Don’t piss me about, Mr Turner,’ she warned. ‘This is a murder inquiry, not some Eton College game!’

  ‘He told me what had happened to poor old Mel, yes.’

  ‘And asked you to alibi him, I suppose?’

  Turner shook his head vigorously, then winced and held a hand to his head. ‘He didn’t need to. He was here until at least 1.15 in the morning.’ He coughed. ‘In my sister’s bloody bed. I had to turf him out of it. Wife was pretty upset about it.’