Green and Pleasant Land

by Judith Cutler

  ‘But no scoops twenty years ago, although she was … having lunch … with Phil Foreman? Were they on lunching terms before or after Natalie disappeared?’

  She looked genuinely amazed. ‘Who told you about them? She never did, surely!’

  ‘Only indirectly. I’d give a lot to find out at what point they started eating together. And how it influenced the way the story was used in the media, of course. And if she was lunching with anyone else at the same time.’

  ‘Like Mandy Rice-Davies, Profumo and that Soviet military guy? Pillow talk, you mean?’ She shook her head. ‘I really don’t know, Mark, and Ted never mentioned anything about that. I know he wasn’t part of the investigation but gossip spreads faster than flu in the police, as I’m sure you know.’

  ‘I do indeed. What a very good job I didn’t take her out to lunch.’

  She smiled, eyes wide with possible innocence. ‘But you might have been able to find out who she’s after now – and maybe get the answer to your other questions. See what Fran thinks about the idea!’ She turned from him to greet a dripping police officer. ‘You poor thing! Now who did you want to see …?’

  ‘But that’s the Ombersley road,’ Paula objected, as Fran, stowing her phone in her bag, pointed the direction they were to go. They’d escaped from the solid mass of M5 traffic by pulling off at Junction Three and were picking a more unconventional route back to base. Just to make things worse, from time to time a promising road would be blocked by floods or fallen trees.

  ‘I know. And I know it’s a little out of our way. And I know we’ve not eaten anything since Markwell’s custard creams. But I just want to drive past our B and B, Paula. Don’t ask me why.’

  ‘Are you afraid it’ll be washed away like your cottage?’ Paula joked. At last, with what in anyone else might have been an indulging the old and frail shrug, she turned the car.

  ‘Yes,’ Fran said, her voice tight; she was suddenly uncomfortably aware of Paula’s scrutiny. ‘More precisely, our landlady’s home may be.’

  ‘Call her?’

  ‘That’s who I was trying to reach earlier.’

  ‘In that case we’d better use these, hadn’t we?’ She switched on the blues and twos. ‘Do you want to call for back-up?’

  ‘You might believe the twitching of my thumbs, but I don’t think a despatcher would.’

  Paula used what appeared to be every one of her advanced driving skills: their progress was exhilarating or terrifying and perhaps both at once. Half the time she must have been aquaplaning, but she managed to keep the car steady. Hedges flashed by. Other vehicles flattened themselves into hedges or were waved back into gateways. Fran clutched her phone as if it was an amulet.

  ‘Nearly there. That’s her house. Please God she’s all right.’

  ‘Weird place for a badger – bloody hell!’ Paula dragged the car sideways. For a second she lost the rear end – but then she straightened out of the skid. ‘Is that – is that your friend?’ She reached for her radio.

  Fran was out of the car and on her knees beside the soaking body without realizing it. Pulse. Airway clear. Check for injury. Recovery position. Her training might be out of date but it all came back. She stripped off her jacket to cover Edwina, whose body seemed to have shrunk.

  Paula was beside her, stripping off her jacket too. ‘Key? Did she give you a front door key?’

  ‘Edwina? Yes. Mark’s got it.’

  ‘Sod it. OK, there’ll be thermal blankets in the boot.’

  Fran obeyed orders.

  Paula yelled into her radio. After a moment of inventive blasphemy, she added, ‘Make it the air ambulance then. This is one we don’t want to lose.’

  ‘Is she stirring? Edwina? Edwina? It’s Fran. Wake up, now. Come on, wake up. There’s a good girl.’ She spoke more in hope than expectation.

  Paula sat back on her haunches. ‘Is it my imagination or is she pissed? Can you smell the booze? And she seems to have spilt some on her clothes.’

  True, on the evidence of the previous evening, Edwina liked her drink. But Fran’d say nothing of that yet. After all, the problem wasn’t how the woman ended up on her front drive but that she was lying there, soaked to the skin, and had been for goodness knows how long.

  ‘We’ll need her clothes as evidence,’ Paula said. ‘Can you feel this bump here? Is there a reason for her to have come out on a day like this wearing only indoor clothes – carpet slippers too?’ She answered herself with a doubtful rock of her hand. ‘Unless you’re drunk out of your mind …’

  The paramedics doing their bit, Paula stood to one side, easing Fran out of the way of a couple of police vehicles that were just arriving. ‘Look, you ought to change if we’re heading for the hospital with her. Nip and get some dry clothes from your room. Has she left her back door open? No? Check for a key under a flower pot: this is the country, after all—’

  ‘And risk disturbing a crime scene?’

  ‘You really are serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘Never more so. I simply don’t see why a woman who was entirely sane last night should fetch up like this.’ She was about to remind Paula why they were staying there in the first place but pulled herself up short. This wasn’t the time or place to spout possibly idle theories. Maybe, just maybe, someone wanted them out of this cottage, too – even if it meant assaulting their landlady. But she’d save paranoid fancies until there was evidence to support them.

  Paula looked her straight in the eye. After a moment, she called her colleagues over. Meanwhile, Fran searched for the key. She’d rather that no one had to break any doors down to get access. But there was no sign of one.

  ‘No problem: she’ll have left one with a neighbour for sure. I’d better go in case they need ID. Sorry.’

  FOURTEEN

  In the living room of his beamed cottage, Trevor Downs, the contact who had demanded a promise of total anonymity, settled himself into what was obviously his chair, leaving the smaller one opposite to Mark. The walls, Tudor at very least, felt thick and solid enough to last for ever; the windows were set so deep in their embrasures it took an exceptional gust of wind even to rattle them. Since Mark had had to battle with conditions he’d rarely experienced before, he welcomed the solidity. On the other hand, he was already irritated at having come out in the first place – the second time in a week when a simple phone call would surely have done. As yet Mark could see no need for a meeting at all, particularly one involving a long journey following diversion after diversion, with a load of road works on a dual carriageway to slop some icing on the soggy cake. Though he’d liked old Swallow, he didn’t feel any warmth at all towards Downs, for all he was in much the same situation as the other ex-cop.

  The two men helped themselves to home-made scones, far heavier and less appetizing than Mark could cook, and excellent home-made jam. The tea was strong enough for a spoon to stand up in. A coal fire blazed in a deep-set fireplace, the occasional puff of smoke blown back by the gale tearing into the trees of Downs’s mature orchard, making the room smell briefly of steam locos. Of Mrs Downs there was no sign, but since the missus was the one who’d made the scones, Mark assumed she’d taken her chance with the weather and left someone else to keep an eye on the old man. Of course he was old. Those who were senior officers twenty years ago were bound to be retirement age or thereabouts now. No doubt their efficient hard-working little team thought they were working with their parents at very least. But at least he and Fran didn’t reminisce endlessly. Did they? This man was into rugby matches he’d won when young, single-handedly by the sound of it, and since Mark’s knowledge of rugby was somewhat less than his knowledge of football, his concentration was wandering. He and Stu had had an interesting morning, logging the memorabilia in the Garbutts’ box. They’d agreed not to speak about what they’d found till the whole team were together—

  Idiot! What was it that Downs had said about Webster? Ostentatiously he fiddled with his left hearing aid. ‘Sorry, Trevor, the old ear
s aren’t what they used to be – Webster’s list? That’s how we located you, isn’t it, working from the list he gave us.’

  Downs might be a bore but he wasn’t stupid. ‘You worked from a list he gave you? That doesn’t sound like very good detective work to me, Mark. But I suppose you big wigs get out of practice at looking at little things. Always go back to basics, that’s what I used to tell my teams – rugby or police.’

  Mark nodded his mea culpa. ‘So the fact he gave us the list is a problem?’

  ‘Depends whose name is on it, doesn’t it? His, for instance, man.’ Downs jabbed a finger as if Mark was an inadequate cadet.

  ‘His? He was involved with the original investigation but didn’t get round to telling us?’ Mark thought back quickly. Whose was the last name on the list? Thompson, Christine. Was it simply a question of a page going AWOL? Or …?

  ‘Perhaps his memory’s gone the way of your hearing.’

  Mark felt himself bracing. He never made any bones about being deaf, but he hated anyone else taking liberties with his disability. He made himself reply evenly, ‘Perhaps it has. I’m afraid nothing can help my ears, but perhaps you could remind me why he’d prefer to leave himself off the list.’

  ‘Like you he took short cuts. He made assumptions. And the worst assumption he made was that the woman and her kid had to be under the snow. Rubbish. We’d have found her if she had been.’

  He’d come to the same conclusion himself, of course. ‘So how would you have driven the investigation, Trevor?’

  ‘Abduction, of course. A kidnap attempt that went wrong. Obvious. Her bloke had a lot of money – why not help him get rid of some of it?’

  ‘Did a kidnapper ever make contact?’

  ‘Not with us. But I’d bet my pension that someone got in touch with Foreman.’

  ‘And he wouldn’t tell his family liaison officer? Or did I hear—?’

  ‘Refused to have one. Refused from start to finish. Which would have me for one suspicious, I can tell you. Nasty piece of knitting if you ask me.’

  ‘Ah! You met him!’

  ‘No. Another assumption there, Mark.’ He wagged his finger as if Mark was a naughty schoolboy. ‘Just what we picked up on the grapevine.’

  Mark nodded as if it was news to him. ‘Certainly makes sense.’

  ‘And neighbours in that mansion of his in Brum – they claimed to have heard shouting. The fact that no one ever saw any bruises is irrelevant – you know that.’

  Now that was new. ‘Quite. One of the worst wife abusers I ever came across was a very senior barrister in the CPS. But would Foreman’s domestic violence square with him employing a private detective?’

  ‘Oh, the one who was screwing one of my detectives,’ Downs observed. ‘Fi somethingorother. They tried to pretend they were having a purely professional relationship but – anyway, the man was in Foreman’s pay, so I had to take her off the case. And keep her off. Stupid bitch. Lost her job eventually.’

  ‘Or unfortunate victim,’ Mark said gently. ‘Yes, we’ve met her. And she’s given us some very useful information.’

  ‘About that little sod Desmond Markwell? He knew a lot more than he let on – and a lot more than we ever did if you ask me.’

  If only Downs would stop interrupting himself with meaningful pauses. He must have known that a nice smooth narrative would have been speedier.

  ‘About the possible abduction?’ Mark prompted. ‘Or,’ he added, going out on a limb, ‘what if it wasn’t an abduction but something prearranged? What if Natalie wanted out of the marriage and faked her own death?’

  He might have sworn at the Pope. Downs was outraged. ‘But she was only a bit of a thing! With a child! And to leave another child behind to die! No, we never even considered that. And neither should you.’

  So much for not making assumptions. But Mark held his tongue.

  ‘The girl was a victim, you mark my words. Now, hang on: there was another woman involved. One that had made a play for Foreman and was seeing your friend Webster, if I remember rightly. Or it might have been one of the guys that left. Worked for a local rag.’

  ‘I might have met her,’ Mark said cautiously. He added, in the way he would have summed up meandering meetings a year or so ago, ‘OK, Trevor: am I right in thinking that you blame Colin Webster for the failure to pursue other lines of enquiry? He’s gone onwards and upwards since then, of course.’

  ‘That’s what they do with useless officers: they promote them to where they can’t do any harm.’

  Mark tried not to take the truism personally. ‘What about the ACC who’s been made redundant – Gerry Barnes?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Was he over-promoted or was he a decent cop or what?’ His phone warbled. Ignore it as would be courteous or take Fran’s message? Somehow Downs didn’t make him feel very courteous, but he needed an answer.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I know the name, that’s all. I know he’s unexpectedly been made redundant. It’s always nice to know any rumours behind such things.’ Though it wasn’t necessarily moral to try to dredge up stuff about your prospective dinner host, especially when he’d offered you your job in the first place.

  Downs got to his feet and padded from the room. Was he fetching some invaluable evidence? While he waited, he checked Fran’s text. Just a mild request to contact her. He frowned. He’d better wait to see what the old bugger had yet to reveal.

  Getting info from Downs like extracting teeth. Be with you soonest poss. XXX.

  Fran stared at the little screen as if she could make the words change. It was crazy: all her life she’d been almost obsessively independent. Now, after a few short months, she found she wanted her husband beside her. And she wanted him beside her in the hospital waiting area right now. She was cold and wet. Paula had nipped out to pick up dry kit, at Fran’s behest, because she wanted Paula to interview Edwina when she came round. She’d much rather have done it herself, it went without saying, but didn’t think the SIO would accept that.

  Meanwhile, abandoning attempts to read any of the downloads on her mobile phone, she leafed through every magazine within reach. Why couldn’t she concentrate? She’d sat waiting for news of patients enough times in the past. What was different about now? Surely she wouldn’t buy the obvious cod-psychology theory that in Edwina she somehow saw her mother, still living in Scotland but rarely in her thoughts? She left her sister and the endlessly patient care home staff to worry about the malevolent old woman. The last time they’d met her mother’s blood pressure had rocketed to such astronomical levels that the staff had made it clear that her mother was better off without Fran’s company. As for Mark …

  ‘Still no news?’ Paula plumped down beside her, dropping a Sainsbury’s bag at her feet. ‘The city centre’s under a couple of feet of water so I went for some of their own clothing brand, Tu. And then I remembered Mark saying something about your bringing in a change of clothes on Edwina’s advice, and there it was, in your office. I know, I know, I should have got some from Edwina’s, but you said about it being a crime scene and …’

  ‘These are fine. Don’t worry.’

  ‘I’ll try and find some news of her while you change.’ She pointed to a handy ladies’. ‘Oh, and I bought some sarnies too.’

  Fran hugged her. ‘If you’re not chief constable before you’re forty I shall eat the wrappers as well.’

  ‘A couple of last questions, Trevor,’ Mark said, sick of an interview that felt like wading through treacle. The older man had simply left the room. Wherever he’d been, when he returned he brought back no bulging package of evidence against Gerry. ‘First of all about Gerry Barnes – you were going to tell me …?’

  ‘That he moved to the force from Gloucestershire just as I was retiring. Clean as a whistle, as far as I know. Someone said something about his wife – can’t recall it right now. But I’ll let you know, if it comes to mind.’

  ‘Thanks. And the last que
stion: what’s your take on this new police commissioner?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Downs said, rubbing his hands with glee. ‘If ever anyone needed investigation, it’s her. In my day they’d have called her a trollop. Uses her money to get clout. And I have word that she influences enquiries – which cases get resources, which don’t.’

  ‘Word? Do you have any evidence?’

  ‘Take my word for it, she’ll have dabbled in this cold case of yours. Can’t keep her painted fingers to herself. You mark my words.’

  ‘I really need more than allegations, Trevor. More than rumour. I need hard facts.’

  ‘Observation!’ Edwina snorted. ‘Tests! I thought the NHS was on its financial knees! What’s it doing keeping a tough old bird like me in for twenty-four hours and wasting all that money? In a private ward, I presume.’ She gestured at her surroundings.

  ‘Just a single NHS ward as far as I know,’ Fran said. There was no need to tell her it was easier to keep an eye on her there – for the nursing staff and for the pimply constable sitting outside trying to pretend he wasn’t playing some game on his phone. ‘I think the hospital trust’s saving up for a boat to take you home,’ Fran said, kissing her cheek affectionately. ‘There’s an awful lot of water out there. Seriously, at any age a bump on the head is serious: think of that lovely actress who died in a skiing accident.’