Beside a Narrow Stream

by Faith Martin

  Hillary glanced around the room, which was pretty standard. The furniture suite took up nearly all the space, and a large-screen television in one corner dominated the cream-painted room. Somewhat to her surprise, the walls contained two original oil paintings. Traditional landscapes, painted in baffling, eye-catching colours. Perfectly blue meadows, pale yellow skies, purple and orange trees. Each carefully painted to resemble a Constable-esque landscape, but the colours jarred like a psychedelic nightmare. It was a clever concept, but to Hillary’s, admittedly untrained eye, it didn’t quite seem to work. The paintings made her feel jittery, and annoyed.

  She pulled her gaze away from them and met Claire Sutton’s fearful eye. ‘They’re our Wayne’s. He’s an artist,’ she added. ‘A proper one. Earns his living at it and everything. They were some of his earlier works – done when he was still at art college. He wanted us to have them. Do you like them?’

  Hillary smiled. ‘They’re very striking,’ she said, truthfully. ‘Mrs Sutton, Mr Sutton, as I said, I have some bad news.’

  At this, Davey Sutton suddenly erupted into a coughing fit. He had thinning dark brown hair and large brown eyes, now red-rimmed from the summer cold that was shaking his lean form. He banged a fist on to his chest, hacked and hawked, and reached for his tea. He took a sip, then glanced at his wife, then at Hillary, then cleared his throat again.

  ‘What kind of bad news then?’ he eventually asked.

  Hillary took a long, slow breath and decided to ease into it gently. ‘Have you heard from your son Wayne recently? I understand he rents a place on the other side of the village?’

  ‘No, not since last Thursday. He came over for some supper,’ Claire Sutton said. ‘What’s happened to him then? He crashed that fancy car of his? Always said it was too fast for him. Sports cars!’ she snorted. ‘What’s he want with one of them, I ask you. Is it bad? The crash, like?’ Her voice wobbled on the last few syllables, and wordlessly her husband reached across to take her hand in his and squeeze it hard.

  ‘He hasn’t crashed his car, Mrs Sutton,’ Hillary said gently, then added softly, ‘This morning, a young man’s body was found in a meadow by two young boys. An elderly woman has positively identified him as being Wayne, but of course, that was only from a photograph, and isn’t yet official.’

  Claire Sutton blinked. ‘So it might not be him?’

  Hillary shrugged, very gently. ‘We need someone to go to the mortuary and make a more formal identification,’ she hedged, not exactly answering her question, whilst at the same time, giving the impression that it probably wasn’t a good idea to hold out too much hope. On the way over here, Keith Barrington had called in to say nobody was answering at Wayne Sutton’s cottage, and the next door neighbour was positive he hadn’t been in all the previous night.

  ‘Davey can’t do it, he’s ill,’ Claire Sutton at once.

  ‘Do you have any more children, Mrs Sutton? Perhaps Wayne’s brother or sister could do it?’ she suggested carefully.

  ‘Can’t. He’s our only one,’ Claire Sutton said forlornly, and began to cry.

  The WPC came a few minutes later, and competently took charge. Within the hour, Claire Sutton and her mother, Wayne’s grandmother, who had driven over from her home in nearby Aynho, were on their way to Oxford to view the body.

  With a small sigh of relief, Hillary stepped outside into the high noon heat and leaned against the fence. A blackbird, busy tugging worms from the lawn, cocked her a quick look, and flew off, cackling. From across the farmyard opposite, a woman watched her from an open doorway.

  Hillary straightened her shoulders and walked over.

  The farmer’s wife, a woman maybe a few years younger than Claire Sutton, watched her approach with pale blue eyes that gave away little. Hillary showed her ID card, and once again introduced herself.

  ‘Jenny Somerleigh,’ the woman nodded, making no move to invite her in. But the shade under her porch was nice and cool, and Hillary had had enough of sitting anyway.

  ‘Do you know the Suttons well?’ Hillary asked, by way of opening gambit.

  ‘Few years. We rented them the cottage back in 2002. Nothing wrong, I hope?’

  ‘There’s been something of a family tragedy,’ Hillary hedged. Whilst she was in little doubt about the identity of the corpse, she had to be discreet for a while longer yet. ‘Any problems? They ever late with the rent, loud parties, anything of that sort?’

  ‘Nah. Mark didn’t like it when that son of theirs parked a tatty old caravan out the back, but then, you couldn’t see it from the front, and there ain’t no near neighbours either side to complain. But we was glad when he left, nevertheless, and they sold it on.’

  ‘I see,’ Hillary nodded. ‘The son any trouble? I hear he used to be an art student. They can be a bit of a handful.’ She smiled encouragingly.

  Jenny Somerleigh nodded seriously. ‘Drugs you mean. And booze? No, nothing like that. Plenty of naked ladies though,’ she added, grinning widely, and showing a row of very badly kept teeth.

  ‘Really? I thought he was into landscapes,’ Hillary said, but supposed any young lad, given a legitimate excuse to stare at naked women all day long, was hardly going to turn up his nose.

  ‘Oh, I dunno about that. But I didn’t mean that he painted them,’ Jenny said, and grinned again. ‘Wayne’s too good-looking for his own good. And knows how to use the old charm. He liked more mature women – or so he always said. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Oh,’ Hillary nodded wisely. ‘Funny, his mother tells me he’s got a regular girlfriend. A woman a few years younger than himself.’

  ‘That pretty thing with long hair? Young, drives a battered mini?’ Jenny tapped the side of her nose. ‘Too poor for our Wayne, I’m thinking. But then, she’s young and pretty and he probably needed some relief from the rest of his blue-rinse army, as my Barry calls ’em.’

  Hillary smiled. ‘Sounds like Wayne wasn’t exactly monogamous.’ And into her mind flashed the image of a cut-out red paper heart. A valentine? A cruel joke? Or a calling card that represented the very real anguish and rage of a female killer?

  The farmer’s wife laughed again. ‘You can say that again.’ She seemed about to say something more, but just then the sound of a baby’s angry cry rang out behind her from the house, and she glanced over her shoulder quickly. ‘Look, sorry, gotta go,’ and before Hillary could say another word, took a step back and promptly shut the door in her face.

  Hillary’s lips twisted wryly, and she wondered what else Jenny Somerleigh might have said and decided to come back for a return visit later. First, she’d try some more of the neighbours.

  There were one or two cottages scattered far and wide on either side of the muck-strewn lane, but nobody was in at any of them, confirming her supposition that nearly all were rented out to workers who commuted either to Banbury, Oxford, or even further afield. Maybe Barry Somerleigh worked the farm alone?

  She was just returning to her car when her mobile phone rang. It was the family liaison officer. Claire Sutton had confirmed the ID. Hillary thanked the WPC and rang off, opening her car door and then standing back as a wave of heat blasted out. She unwound the two front door windows and stood back outside the car, letting Puff the Tragic Wagon air a bit. Then, making a rare snap decision, she radioed HQ and got Gemma Fordham’s mobile telephone number, quickly entered it into her phone’s memory and hit speed-dial.

  It was answered promptly.

  ‘DS Fordham.’ The deep, gravelly voice sounded alert and upbeat.

  ‘Gemma, it’s me,’ Hillary said, expecting to be recognized, and not disappointed.

  ‘Guv,’ Gemma Fordham said smartly.

  ‘I want you to leave off house-to-house and get back to HQ. Have a word with the PR Officer – I want you to do a radio broadcast on both BBC Radio Oxford and Fox FM, to catch tonight’s commuter traffic, appealing for anyone to come forward who met or saw Wayne Sutton yesterday.’

  It was throwing the new girl
in at the deep end, but Hillary had no doubt she was up to it. Besides, she hated doing radio interviews herself.

  ‘Right, guv,’ Gemma said, totally unfazed, as if she did radio slots every day of the week. ‘ID’s confirmed then?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t usually go public so soon,’ Hillary said, then wondered why she felt the need to explain herself to her new, super-efficient DS, and carried on, a bit more sharply, ‘but the crime scene’s too far out of the way to make any witnesses to the actual event likely, and I need to get any interesting worms to come out of the woodwork as soon as possible. And from something one of the Suttons’ neighbours told me, I think there are plenty of worms of the female variety about who could tell us a thing or two.’ And, she thought silently, given that red paper heart, it would be interesting to see which women volunteered to come forward, and which had to be winkled out.

  ‘Right guv,’ Gemma Fordham said, and waited for Hillary to hang up first. When she did, she put her phone away thoughtfully, and allowed herself a small smile. The boss either trusted her with the radio appeal, or else wanted to give her enough rope to hang herself. Either way, she was obviously making an impression.

  Then she felt the smile fall from her face and gave herself a mental kick. Making an impression was not exactly what she was there for. If she was going to get that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow she needed to be unobtrusive. To fly below the radar, to watch, listen and learn, then nip in and out again and be off before anyone could wonder why.

  Damn it, she was going to have to keep her need to impress and outshine Hillary Greene firmly in check.

  Oblivious to the glories of the late spring day around her, Gemma Fordham walked quickly back to the crime scene, and got a lift back to HQ with a patrol car, already planning the radio appeal in her head. Quiet, calm, concise. Nothing flashy but enough to get the job done.

  That was going to be her motto from now on.

  Monica Freeman, the victim’s girlfriend, lived in a small block of red-brick flats overlooking a large car park in the nearby market town of Banbury. According to Claire Sutton, she worked as a trainee veterinary nurse at a practice in town, so Hillary wasn’t particularly surprised to find no one in at the flat. It didn’t take her long to walk back to her car or track down the surgery.

  The Fairways Clinic was situated not far from the famous Banbury Cross, in a small, fairly new-looking industrial estate. Hillary parked in a surprisingly spacious car park and made her way to the clinic doors, feeling the sun beat down on her back and make a trickle of sweat run down her shoulderblades. Inside, a large black-and-white cat was yowling from the depths of a carrier-cage, and an excitable Jack Russell pup, wearing what looked like a lampshade around his neck, barked at the cat like a thing demented.

  Hillary walked over to the reception desk and, low-voiced, asked if she might have a quiet word with Monica Freeman. She showed her ID card yet again, and the receptionist, a little wide-eyed, left the desk and moved quickly into the back, where something was whining pitifully.

  Hillary hoped it wasn’t a vet.

  A few minutes later, the receptionist came back. ‘Please, follow me. You’ll have to use an examining room, I’m afraid. We’re a bit short of office space.’

  Hillary smiled to show that was fine, and followed the woman through a narrow maze of corridors, obviously made of thin hard-wood. The tap-tap-tap of the woman’s high heeled shoes on the linoleum flooring sounded weirdly amplified. Again something whined pitifully, and Hillary was glad she didn’t keep pets. The wild mallards and moorhens who regularly congregated around her boat of a morning to beg for breakfast didn’t count.

  ‘Through here,’ the receptionist said, pushing open a door to reveal a small cubicle containing a very high table, shelving full of plastic containers of various liquids and drugs, and a tall, ash blonde young woman, who was wearing a white coat and a puzzled, vaguely worried frown.

  ‘Thank you,’ Hillary said firmly to the woman still holding open the door, who then flushed and quickly withdrew. ‘Monica Freeman?’

  ‘Yes. Vera said you were with the police?’ Wide grey eyes watched her nervously and Hillary once again withdrew her ID card.

  ‘Yes. I’ve just got a few routine questions. Can you tell me what you were doing yesterday, from around four o’clock onwards?’

  Monica Freeman blinked her big, fine grey eyes and looked about to object. Then she seemed to change her mind. ‘Well, at four I was still here. I worked until six, then I went to Mum and Dad’s. I usually have dinner there once or twice a week. It keeps us in touch, and well, the wages here aren’t much so I appreciate the free meal. We had meatloaf,’ she added, with just a touch of ironic belligerence. ‘I stayed with them until about nine or so, then came back here, to the flat.’

  ‘You live alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did anyone see you return to your flat? Neighbours, the caretaker?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And your parents live … where?’

  ‘Deddington. Look, do you mind if I ask what this is all about?’ She wore her long hair held back in a pony tail, and when she moved it swung around the back of her head like a live thing. She didn’t have many curves, but her face was intriguing, with high cheekbones and a very sharp chin and delicate lines to her jaw. Hillary could well understand why a good-looking young man would be attracted to her. They must have made a fine-looking, even eye-catching couple.

  Hillary nodded to herself as she took apart the witness’s words. The first part of the evening sounded like a solid enough alibi, and before she left here she’d make sure that Monica Freeman had indeed worked until she’d said – but parents often lied for their children, and after nine she had no alibi at all. So she was firmly in the frame.

  ‘It’s about Wayne Sutton. He’s your boyfriend, I understand?’ she said, a touch more gently now.

  Monica Freeman opened her mouth, then slowly closed it again. Her eyes, already large, seemed to grow bigger. ‘What’s happened to him?’ she asked, her voice quiet, almost whispering. ‘Did he crash his car?’

  Hillary wondered what sort of driver their victim had been if both the women in his life instantly assumed he’d had a car accident. According to the data she’d so far accumulated, Wayne Sutton had only been 25-years-old at the time of his death, so perhaps the assumption was understandable. As a beat officer, Hillary had quickly learned, and only too well, that young men and fast cars should be kept far apart.

  ‘No, he hasn’t been involved in a traffic accident, but I’m afraid I have some very bad news, nonetheless,’ she said softly.

  Slowly Monica Freeman leaned back against the high table, her hands shaking as they clasped the edges of it.

  ‘The body of a young man was found in a meadow just outside Deddington this morning. His mother has identified him as being Wayne Sutton. I’m sorry.’

  Monica Freeman nodded. ‘Oh,’ she said blankly.

  About a half an hour later, Hillary drove a short distance up the road, where Monica’s parents, Victor and Pauline, owned and operated a small garden centre. She found them both in a handkerchief-sized outside area that was crammed with every climbing plant imaginable – something of their speciality, Pauline Freeman quickly informed her.

  She was tall and lean, like her daughter, but her hair was a riotous mass of brown curls. Monica’s ash-blonde looks and triangular face came courtesy of her father’s genes, Hillary noticed, when Pauline called him over to join them.

  Yet again, Hillary brought out the ID. ‘I’ve just come from speaking to your daughter,’ Hillary began, and saw by the quick look of surprise they gave each other that this was news to them. Hillary was just a little surprised herself. She’d expected Monica to call them and tell them the news straight away.

  Why hadn’t she?

  ‘Our Mon’s not in any trouble I hope,’ Pauline Freeman said, half-laughing, half-worried.

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ Hillary lied. Bei
ng a suspect in a murder inquiry could probably be classified as ‘trouble’ in anybody’s book, but she knew that that wasn’t what the girl’s mother meant. ‘It’s about Wayne Sutton.’

  ‘Huh, I knew it,’ Victor Freeman said, putting down a huge tub of flowering ‘Montana’ clematis, and glancing quickly into the shop to make sure that there were no customers waiting. ‘Always thought he was going to end up coming to your lot’s attention at some point.’

  ‘Oh now, Vic, don’t be daft,’ Pauline said, casting a worried look Hillary’s way. ‘He don’t mean nothing by it. He just thinks Wayne’s not good enough for his daughter, that’s all. I expect all doting daddies feel the same way.’

  Victor Freeman frowned at his wife and shook his head. ‘That boy’s trouble waiting to happen. I always said so. So what’s he done? Killed someone in that car of his? Knocked some kiddie over? Or has somebody’s husband put him in hospital?’

  Hillary smiled grimly. ‘Neither, Mr Freeman. He’s been murdered.’

  Pauline Freeman sat down abruptly into the empty wheelbarrow that was pressing against the back of her legs. Victor Freeman gaped at Hillary. ‘Murdered? So one of them murdered him. Bloody hell, I didn’t think it would ever come to something as bad as that.’

  Hillary held his gaze firmly. ‘One of who, Mr Freeman?’

  Victor shook his head, blinking. ‘What? Sorry, what?’

  ‘You said “one of them murdered him”. One of who, Mr Freeman?’ she reiterated patiently.

  From the wheelbarrow, Pauline Freeman groaned. ‘Oh Vic, you shouldn’t have said that. You don’t know, not for sure. It’s probably just gossip. Jealous old biddies. You know how villages are. We come from Birmingham originally, you see,’ she glanced across to Hillary. ‘Came down here when our Mon was just a baby. Thought country living, and village life would be safer. Better for her. But some of those cats in Deddington are vicious, I can tell you.’