‘Speed cameras, Dave,’ I warned. ‘Slow down, or the bastards’ll get you.’
‘No,’ he stated, ‘they’ll get you.’
‘Well slow down then!’
He slowed down. We left the roadworks behind and Nigel was admiring the view. ‘What are those?’ he asked, looking out of his window. ‘I seem them every time I come this way and wonder what they are.’
Dave glanced across and I peered out of the back window. ‘What are what?’ Dave said.
‘Those buildings, in that field.’
Long and low, red brick with slate roofs, they were a familiar sight to me, but to Nigel, from Berkshire, they were a novelty.
‘Tusky sheds,’ Dave stated.
‘Tusky sheds?’
‘Rhubarb sheds,’ I explained. ‘They grow rhubarb in them. Norfolk has its windmills, Kent has its oast houses, and we have rhubarb sheds.’
‘Right!’ Nigel exclaimed. ‘Right! And I suppose that’s a toothpaste quarry over there, and that old mill is where they used to make blue steam!’ He pulled the Telegraph out again and started reading the obituaries.
‘They’re rhubarb sheds!’ Dave snapped at him. ‘Like he told you.’
‘Just once,’ Nigel pronounced, ‘just once it’d be nice to get a sensible answer to a sensible question.’ He read a few more deaths then pretended to be asleep.
‘Nigel,’ I said, assuming my mantle of authority. ‘They are rhubarb sheds. It grows best in the dark. This area south of Leeds is the country’s major producer of rhubarb.’
‘Have you ever had rhubarb crumble?’ Dave asked him.
‘No,’ he snarled.
Dave glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Ring our Shirl,’ he told me, ‘and tell her to get a rhubarb crumble out of the freezer. Nigel’s in for a treat.’
The arrangement was that the three of us were going back to Dave’s house for fresh-caught fish, and chips made with his home-grown potatoes. I asked Nigel to pass me my phone and dialled Shirley.
We’d forgotten it was not quite seven in the morning, and Shirley wasn’t too pleased at being disturbed again. She’s a pal, though, and soon forgave me, but couldn’t help with the crumble. They were out of them. ‘Bring some rhubarb back with you,’ she suggested, ‘and I’ll make him one.’
The east coast suffers from what are known as sea frets. One hundred yards inland it can be a scorcher, but a thick mist rises off the water, blotting out the sun and turning July into November. Today we had a mother and father of one.
We groped our way along the pier, between plastic-clad holidaymakers forced to desert their rooms while the maid changed the sheets, and were accosted by the touts who work for the boats. Seven blokes in scruffy clothes hadn’t come to sample the funfare, and we were putty in their hands. Dave put up a struggle, giving nearly as good as he got, and insisted that we go in a boat that was only half-filled. Just before we cast off, however, we were ordered to switch into the boat tied alongside, which was also half-full, so now we were in one that was crowded.
On the trip out I explained to Nigel how to put a bunch of mussels on his hook and how to feel for the bottom with the big lead weight. Because of the weather, and because it was just a three-hour trip, we would only go into the bay. We shivered, shoulder to shoulder, and waited for the boat to stop.
The skipper switched the engine off and gave the order to start fishing. The boat, bristling with rods, looked like a floating hedgehog. I felt my weight hit the bottom, reeled in a couple of turns and showed Nigel how to do the same.
‘Now wait for a bite,’ I said. ‘And then what?’
‘Strike and haul it up.’
‘That simple.’
‘Yep.’
The first tangle came after about ten minutes of waiting. Someone at the other side of the boat started winding in, a chap along from me struck and started winding, then Dave, me, Nigel and everyone else in the boat.
‘Stop reeling in!’ yelled the skipper.
It took him nearly fifteen minutes to unravel the ball of spaghetti that we eventually lifted out of the water. We repeated the exercise six more times and that was the three hours up. ‘Is it always this much fun?’ Nigel asked.
The other four made straight for the pub while we went looking for a fishmonger. ‘I don’t suppose you have any cod with the heads and tails still on?’ Dave asked in the most promising one.
‘Sorry, sir,’ the man replied. ‘It’s all been filleted.’
‘Oh. In that case, can I have six large portions, please?’ Shirley and their children, Daniel and Sophie, would be eating with us.
I noticed that the salmon was only ten pence dearer than the cod. ‘I think I’d prefer a piece of salmon,’ I said.
Dave turned on me. ‘You can’t have salmon. We’ve supposed to have caught it.’
‘Well, I caught a salmon.’
‘They don’t catch salmon.’
‘Of course they catch it. Where do you think it comes from?’
‘It comes from a farm. They farm it.’
I turned to the fishmonger. ‘Was the salmon wild?’ I asked him.
‘It wasn’t too pleased,’ he replied. Everybody’s a stand-up comedian these days.
We couldn’t find a rhubarb shop so we joined the others in the pub and let them have a smell of our fish. Dave and Nigel had a couple of pints and I settled for halves because it was my turn to drive. They talked about the job most of the way home while I concentrated on staying awake. ‘So were you two on the Ripper case?’ Nigel asked.
‘On it’s putting it a bit steep,’ Dave replied. ‘We were there, that’s all.’
‘So what were you doing?’
‘Stopping cars, mainly. Anybody out late at night got used to being stopped. Other crime fell dramatically.’
‘And how long did it go on for?’
‘Oh, about two years. I’m not proud of it, but the Ripper paid the deposit on my first house.’
‘We worked hard, Dave,’ I said. ‘Some paid for their entire houses and did a lot less than us.’
‘Mmm, I know.’
‘You were lucky, weren’t you, when you caught him?’ Nigel asked.
‘Dead jammy,’ Dave agreed.
‘It was good policing,’ I argued.
‘We could do with a bit more luck like that,’ Dave said.
After a silence Nigel asked: ‘So why haven’t you ever gone for your stripes, Dave?’
Dave didn’t reply. ‘You’re on a touchy subject, Nigel,’ I warned.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, but he has his reasons, daft as they probably are.’
‘So why haven’t you?’ Nigel persisted.
‘Leave it,’ I told him. Dave has fluffed his sergeant’s exam several times, but I don’t know why. He claims he just freezes in the exam room, but I don’t believe him. I’ve seen him take on more than one whizkid barrister and do all right.
We were passing a sign saying the next services were ten miles ahead. ‘Wouldn’t mind stopping for a pee,’ Dave said.
‘Me too,’ Nigel added.
Nigel was explaining to Dave how JJ Fox gained control of various companies even though he had less than fifty per cent of the shares. ‘He has a reputation second to none for making companies profitable,’ he said. ‘OK, so he sacks people and asset-strips, but the shareholders don’t mind if they are reaping the benefits. If he has, say, thirty-five per cent of the shares, he can attract the proxy votes of the smaller shareholders who can’t be bothered to vote themselves. This might give him, say, a sixty per cent holding, so he’s effectively in control.’
‘Shareholders want to see their investments doing well,’ I said as I cruised past the slip road to the services. ‘You can’t really blame them for ignoring the man’s ethics.’
‘Not only that,’ Nigel added. ‘Most of the investors are probably pension schemes. They’re obliged to strive for the best available for their members, so they can’t afford to be choosy.’
‘Aargh! You’ve passed them!’ Dave complained.
Five minutes later we were back in the rhubarb triangle. ‘How desperate are you?’ I asked.
‘Quite,’ Nigel said.
‘Bloody,’ Dave added.
Away to my left I could see a pair of sheds, side by side in the middle of some allotments, with a Land Rover standing outside them. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘In that case we’ll kill two birds with one stone.’ I pulled across into the slow lane and indicated that I was leaving at the next exit.
‘Where are we going?’ Nigel asked.
‘To some rhubarb sheds,’ I replied. ‘There was a Land Rover outside. You can have a pee and I’ll see if he’ll sell me some rhubarb.’
I took left turns until I was driving back alongside the motorway, and turned left again down a cobbled street that looked promising. We were between two rows of terraced houses, left isolated for some reason when the area had been cleared. They were occupied and looked tidy, with clotheslines across the road and some children kicking a ball about. We’d stepped back in time.
The cobbles gave way to a dirt track that led through the allotments, fenced round with a mishmash of old doors, wire netting and floorboards. Blue smoke drifted up from a pile of burning sods and a piebald pony tied to a stake reached for fresh grass outside the bald circle it occupied.
‘There they are,’ I said, nodding towards the rhubarb sheds. There were two of them at the far side of an area of uncultivated ground, backing against the motorway embankment. More gypsy ponies were tethered nearby, but the Land Rover had vanished.
‘He’s gone,’ I said. ‘Never mind.’ I drove up to the sheds and stopped. We all got out and Dave and Nigel wandered round the back to relieve themselves.
Several abandoned cars were strewn down one side of the buildings, like wrecks on the seabed, slowly returning to nature. A Morris Minor had almost rotted away, its oil-soaked engine putting up the only resistance. Tall grass and willow-herb grew through tyres that were scattered around, left where they fell. I kicked one and two goldfinches flew up from a patch of thistles.
The door at the front of the first shed was wide enough for a trailer to be backed through, and written on it in cream paint that had dribbled was the name J. Nelson and Sons, with a telephone number. The padlock on the door was a big Chubb made from some exotic steel that must have cost about a hundred pounds, and a picture of a Rottweiler’s head bore the legend: Make my day. Rhubarb’s a valuable crop, I thought.
I heard Dave call my name so I walked round the side. He emerged from behind the building, at the far end, and shouted: ‘Come and look at this.’
I picked my way through the nettles and debris and joined them at the back of the sheds, up against the embankment. ‘What have you found?’ I asked.
There was a post-and-rail fence marking the boundary of the motorway, and Dave pointed at a rail. ‘See that,’ he said.
The rail was sawn through, almost all the way, close to the post.
‘So?’
‘And here, and here.’ All three rails were similar. ‘It’s the same at the other end,’ he told me.
I walked the four yards to the next post to see for myself. ‘What do you make of it?’ I asked.
‘Someone might want to get away in a hurry,’ Nigel said. ‘They could charge straight through the fence and up the bank on to the motorway.’
‘Now why would they want to do that?’ I wondered. There was a junction five hundred yards away, with a choice of five different directions for them to flee down.
‘Come and listen,’ Dave said, adding: ‘But mind the wet grass.’
I followed him to the boarded-up window in the back wall.
‘What can you hear?’ he asked.
‘Traffic’
‘No, from inside. Listen.’
I cupped my hand around an ear and put it close to the window, sealing the other with a finger. There was a low hum coming from inside. ‘Sounds a bit like a generator,’ I said.
‘Why would he want a generator?’
‘Lighting?’
‘Rhubarb grows in the dark. So do mushrooms.’
‘Heating?’
‘It’s the hottest summer on record, and generators are not that powerful.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘So maybe we should take a closer look. The lock on the front door looks as if it came from Fort Knox.’
‘Leave it to me,’ Dave said, and wandered off to rummage amongst the wrecks. He came back in less than a minute carrying a half-shaft.
We were in a secluded spot behind the buildings, out of sight of the traffic or the nearby houses. What we were doing was illegal, there was no excuse for it, but we did it just the same. Every pane of glass in the window was broken but it was boarded up on the inside. Strands of barbed wire were stapled around it as a further deterrent. Dave took a swing at the end board and a dog inside started barking. It sounded big, and fierce, and very angry.
‘Blimey, I’m not going in there,’ I said. I worry about dogs.
The more Dave hammered the more demented the dog became. It sounded as if it might rip us limb from limb. ‘Don’t make the hole too large,’ I pleaded. ‘It might leap out.’
When the first board had moved a little he used the half-shaft as a lever. Nails screeched as they were uprooted. Dave knocked some bits of glass out and moved higher up the plank of wood, feeling for a new purchase.
‘Let’s have a look,’ I said. He stepped aside and I peered through the triangular gap. ‘It’s light inside,’ I told them. ‘Looks like fluorescents, take it right out.’
One minute and a ripped shirtsleeve later the plank fell to the floor. The dog barks had subsided to a hoarse staccato, but no slavering face appeared at the gap. It must have been tied up.
‘Bloody hell!’ exclaimed Nigel. ‘Is that what I think it is?’ Inside was a jungle of foliage, illuminated from above by bluish strip lights.
‘I knew it!’ Dave declared triumphantly. ‘I knew it! Cannabis! Cannabis sativa. At a guess the variety commonly known as skunk.’
‘Ah,’ I said, ‘but what’s that I can see at the far end, just inside the doors?’
‘Friggin’ heck!’ he exclaimed. ‘A white van.’
‘Of the variety commonly known as a Transit,’ Nigel added, and his grin made Sparky’s ruined shirt completely worthwhile.
Everybody agreed that the fish and chips were superb. There was no substitute for fish taken straight from the sea. It made a big difference. We were late, but Shirley’s annoyance soon evaporated when she saw our buoyant mood.
‘So who caught them?’ asked Daniel, Dave’s son, as he pushed his empty plate away.
‘I did,’ his father replied; ‘We caught one each,’ I said; ‘We bought them,’ Nigel confessed, all more or less simultaneously.
Nigel had left his car outside my house. He came in with me and we did some phoning. James Nelson was sixty-three years old and had no criminal record. It was different for his sons, Barry and Leonard. They’d been in trouble all their lives, starting with shoplifting and progressing right through to burglaries, via a couple of fracas. Up to then they’d concentrated on breaking into industrial premises and shops, which is regarded as a less serious offence than burgling domestic premises, and carries a lighter sentence. They’d had the lot: cautions; probation; community service; fines; and extended holidays at the Queen’s expense. Sometimes the system doesn’t work.
Or perhaps it did. They’d both kept out of trouble for over two years, which were personal bests. Alternatively, perhaps they’d paid attention to what their teachers said at the Academy of Crime, and thought they were now a lot cleverer. If so, they were mistaken. Jails are filled with the failures, the ones we catch; the smart ones we never even know about.
I rang Jeff Caton to tell him the good news, but his wife told me that he wasn’t home yet.
‘Not home!’ I exclaimed. ‘Not home! We’ve been home hours.’ She agreed to tell him to phon
e me as soon as he arrived.
When it’s on my patch I have the final say, so we met at ten on Sunday morning. Dave and myself went to see James Nelson while Nigel, Jeff and a DS from the drug squad met at the rhubarb sheds, armed with a search warrant.
Nelson lived in a run-down farmhouse just a few hundred yards from the row of terraced houses. More abandoned vehicles littered the yard and a German shepherd dog, chained to a wheel-less Ford Popular, gave an early warning of our approach. Judging from its teats it had just had pups. I moved to the other side of Sparky as we passed it.
‘Are you James Nelson?’ Dave asked the leather-skinned man who opened the door. He looked at least seventy, so we couldn’t be sure. He wore a vest and dangling braces, and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a documentary about Bosnian refugees.
‘Aye,’ he replied warily.
‘I’m DC Sparkington from Heckley CID, and this is my senior officer, DI Priest. I think you’d better let us in.’
My senior officer! Dave was at his Sunday best and I was impressed.
The inside of the house was all Catherine Cookson. Not the wicked master’s house, and not that of the poor girl who is left orphaned and has to dig turnips every day with only a broken button-hook to raise a few coppers to feed her six younger brothers and sisters and keep them from the lascivious clutches of the master. This belonged to the stern but kindly blacksmith who throws her the odd horseshoe to make soup with, who is in love with her but knows that she is really the master’s illegitimate daughter and can never be his.
There was a big iron range, with a built-in set-pot and a fire glowing in the grate. Pans and strange implements hung from the beams and two squadrons of houseflies were engaged in a dogfight around the light bulb, which was on because the curtains were closed. The temperature must have been in the nineties. We sat down, and a black cat which I hadn’t seen bolted for safety from under my descending backside.
‘Are Barry and Len in?’ Dave asked.
Mr Nelson shook his head.
‘Where are they?’
‘They’m don’ live ‘ere. What they’m done now?’
Some by Fire Page 21
