The Rags of Time

by Peter Grainger

  ‘Work?’

  ‘No, nothing you need to worry about.’

  ‘You can still talk to me. It doesn’t have to be about work. What happened while you were away?’

  This was turning out to be an unexpectedly odd conversation.

  Smith said, ‘Thanks, I do know that. But I’m still straightening a few things out. I haven’t talked about it to anyone yet. Oh, except for a Franciscan friar who I don’t know from Adam who turned out to be an ex-con. Never mind all that. What’s Gareth Stone saying now?’

  Exactly the same story that he had told Michael Symons; it was so close, she said, that they might need to interview Symons again to see if they could find anything that did not tarry. Smith said that he thought that might be a good idea as long as he did not have to re-interview Mrs Bridget Jones. And then, to his surprise, Reeve asked him what he thought of it all, the overall position of the case against Stone. She was feeling it now, the pressure that comes with being the senior investigating officer in a murder case.

  After a pause for thought that he made no attempt to hide, Smith said, ‘His second version of events is a good one – and I mean good in the sense that it accounts for most of what we’ve got that makes us want to put him in the frame. His story now allows him all the opportunity in the world, but where’s the motive? We can put forward various possibilities but without something solid, we might have trouble making it stick. And then – well, you’ve already been over this a hundred times in your head; where is the weapon?’

  He did not go into his earlier thoughts about this – why that weapon, if indeed it was a spade? To be brutal, at this stage any weapon would do as long as it had Mark Randall’s blood on it. Had forensics taken any possibilities away?

  ‘Chris and Mike aren’t back yet, so I haven’t seen the list. But I think they would have called me if anything obvious had turned up. John is confident that we will find something that breaks his latest story but I wish it wasn’t so close to what he told Michael Symons the next day. He’s not that clever, Gareth Stone – to have thought of a story three weeks ago that answers all the questions we’re asking him now. That’s what bothers me, DC.’

  And me, he thought. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but had they gone too soon? Had Wilson convinced his inspector that they had their man simply because they had caught him out in one lie? Smith had seen plenty of juries persuaded by the accused’s admission that he or she had simply panicked when first questioned; if Stone’s second story had differed in some meaningful way from what he had told Michael Symons, all well and good. But it did not, it seemed. So now he had to say this.

  ‘There is a possible explanation for why his second story is giving you such a pain in the backside, ma’am.’

  The silence told him that she already knew it. After it, she said, ‘Yes, I know. But you can say it anyway.’

  ‘Ok, then – because it’s the truth.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Various people talked it over in twos and threes for the rest of that afternoon but came to no conclusion, and so a briefing was arranged for eight fifteen the following morning, Thursday the 4th of July. Everyone would be there, though Smith did express the opinion, nothing more, that further contributions from anyone above the rank of detective inspector at this stage might not be helpful, and Alison Reeve gave a nod of silent agreement.

  Smith had given himself a stern briefing the previous evening; it was time to get back into a proper routine. He didn’t like the thought that DI Reeve was having to spend time asking how one of her sergeants was feeling instead of focusing on what was potentially a very awkward case – it was one thing to be a little out of sync himself but quite another to allow that to affect the work of the Kings Lake team. He began by heading out to the garage and exercising for fifty minutes, first on the treadmill and then with the free weights, and then going back into the kitchen and making a meal of fresh salad and fruit ingredients. No caffeine this evening and early to bed, early to rise. He set his alarm for 05.50 and fell asleep with a virtuous smile on his face – so far, so good.

  At 06.00 the following morning he was seated on his meditation bench, and it was 06.40 before he came back to find himself still there but more relaxed than he had felt for some time. A light breakfast of organic muesli and a single cup of coffee, Tanzanian Arabica with a strength rating of just three. No cigarette, which was not entirely an act of self-will; he knew that he might need two after the briefing. Yesterday’s exercise had left him stiff in the arms and shoulders but in every other way he felt better and sharper. He left for work a full half an hour earlier than was necessary.

  Which was why surprise and relief fought a brief battle on the broad and furrowed brow of Desk Sergeant Charles Hills when Smith appeared in the reception area at a little after half past seven that morning. Charlie had a phone in each hand – the landline in his right and a mobile in his left. He held up the mobile as if it was a lollipop lady’s stop sign and Smith halted his progress as if he was an obedient motorist.

  Charlie said into the mobile, ‘Ma’am, DC has just come into the station. Did you wish to speak to him?’

  Smith was a little taken aback – it was good to be appreciated but his arrival was not usually the subject of such interest and attention. He watched Charlie’s face as some sort of answer was given – it could only be Detective Inspector Reeve, couldn’t it, with the ‘ma’am’? The only other senior female officer possibility was DCI Cara Freeman of the Regional Serious Crimes Unit, and they had nothing going on that would interest her, as far as he knew. Some months had passed since she had made a determined effort to recruit him as some sort of dog-handler for her team of over-eager puppies. No, it couldn’t be DCI Freeman…

  Things were still looking and sounding complicated for Charlie Hills, though.

  ‘Yes I will, ma’am. She’s still on the other line, on hold. Yes I will, ma’am. Yes, ma’am… PC Richard Ford and WPC, sorry, Officer Nicola Cavendish, ma’am, already on their way.’

  Charlie was still taking instructions as he looked across at Smith, who now gingerly approached the counter as if he was unwilling to get caught up in whatever storm was about to break. The voice on the mobile was still giving instructions – Smith frowned at Sergeant Hills and whispered, ‘Yes he will, ma’am!’ Charlie raised the fist that held the landline and shook it at him. Then the call on the mobile ended quite suddenly, and Charlie placed it on the counter.

  ‘Right. That was DI Reeve. She says you’re to deal with this. You’re to speak to this woman and then get yourself out there. She’ll call you in a few minutes.’

  ‘Charlie, what exactly is this? Who is this woman?’

  Sergeant Hills was looking a little more like his usual glum self at the prospect of handing on this burden to another.

  ‘We have here a woman who I would describe as mildly hysterical, and you are to deal with it or with her. Those are my orders.’

  He held the landline towards Smith who made no move to take it from him.

  ‘Do we have a name, sergeant?’

  Charlie looked down for his notepad and a terrible thought struck home.

  ‘Charlie? It’s not a woman called Jones, is it? Bridget Jones?’

  The desk sergeant looked up slowly and studied Smith’s face.

  ‘Bridget Jones? Have you been drinking, DC? Not back on the old painkillers?’

  ‘Or Dolly Argyris? I’m not speaking to her, Charlie.’

  Charlie shook his head in some wonderment.

  ‘Just how many women are there, DC? Is this all in your mind? Or did you have a ride in one of Dolly’s cabs and do a runner? Listen, I reckon this is serious, so we’d better shape up. We have here a lady called Marie Wilkinson from Lowacre. She called in to that bloody farce known as the County Calls Management Service and they’ve put it through to me. She’s found something that seems to be of considerable interest to your boss – who would like you to deal with it as you’ve fortuitously turned up. Appar
ently she needs to get hold of Wilson in a hurry, as a result of this. You are now up to speed as far as I’m concerned, so please take a hold of this sodding phone!’

  He did, and Charlie was right – no more fooling around because Smith had recognised the name immediately. He pressed the button that put him through to the woman on hold.

  ‘Marie Wilkinson? I’m Detective Sergeant David Smith from Kings Lake Central police station. How can I help you?’

  ‘God, not another one! Have I got to go through this all again?’

  ‘No, madam, you don’t have to do that. I know who you are and how much you helped us a week or two ago. My colleague tells me that you have found something. What is it, and where are you?’

  ‘I just don’t believe this is happening to me. I was on my usual route this morning for the first time since it happened – you know what I’m talking about, obviously.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Where exactly are you now, Ms Wilkinson? Take your time and give me your location.’

  She was slowing down and regaining control but he guessed that it was not jogging that had caused her breathlessness on this occasion.

  ‘OK – thank you. I’m on the B671, the Lowacre road from the A46 to Lake. I’m by a gateway into a field by the river.’

  ‘Good. If you don’t mind me saying so, that sounds like the field where you discovered the body of Mark Randall.’

  ‘It is! It effing well is! Sorry, I don’t usually swear, but… I just can’t believe this is happening.’

  It would have been so wrong but the thought was there in the back of his mind, to say to her ‘Well, you haven’t found another one, have you?’ Instead, he reassured her again that he quite understood how distressing these things could be, and then he asked her exactly what she had seen this morning.

  ‘Like I said, I’m in the gateway. I’m not going back there to have another look. It’s a bloody shovel. Literally – it’s a shovel lying in the grass and it’s got blood on it.’

  When he arrived, Marie Wilkinson was exactly where and what he had pictured her to be – a slim, athletic-looking woman in her thirties on the road side of the gateway, and Nicola Cavendish was with her, chatting away and reassuring her – when Cavendish saw Smith pull up she said something that made the lady smile but he had no idea what it might have been. He walked towards them, looking around for Richard Ford at the same time, and then he could see him on the footpath between the field and the river, standing still and looking down the slope to the river, not far at all from where Randall’s body had been found.

  Smith introduced himself and asked Marie Wilkinson to explain exactly what had happened once again but now that he was here she seemed more than willing to tell the story once more. She had made her usual run out to Upper Mill, turned back and taken the path that runs behind the friary – no, she had seen no-one else this morning other than a couple of motorists on the Upper Mill road. It was the first time she had felt able to take this route since the day when she had found the body in the field. She had got just past the spot, feeling a little nervous, when she saw something in the grass between the footpath and the river. She ran past and then had an odd feeling, so she walked back and went down a step or two to have a closer look. It was a shovel, and she was sure that it had blood on it. Then she had run down to the gateway and called 999.

  ‘Obviously I wouldn’t normally have done that but… It just seemed so weird.’

  Smith said, ‘You did absolutely the right thing. If you don’t mind me asking – and I am going to have a good look myself in just a moment – how did you know it was blood? Is it fresh blood?’

  ‘No. Dried blood, smears of it.’

  He let both of the women see that he was having to think that over.

  ‘Forgive me for saying so, Ms Wilkinson, but dried blood doesn’t really look much like blood. The average person in the street often doesn’t recognise it as such. What made you so certain?’

  ‘I’m a senior medical technician at Lake General.’

  ‘OK – in this case you are not at all the average person in the street – my apologies. Would you mind waiting here with Officer Cavendish while I go and have a look for myself? Thank you. I assume that it’s where the other officer is standing…’

  It was. Richard Ford didn’t need to point it out – the handle of the shovel was plainly visible on the grass-covered bank. A wooden handle that looked well-worn, the old-fashioned sort. Smith looked at the bank above it and could see where the woman had taken a step or two down to get a closer look; then he asked Ford whether he had done the same.

  ‘No, DC – sergeant.’

  Ford was looking slightly dazed, as if someone had given him a clout with the shovel, never mind whose blood was congealing on it now. Smith asked him if he was alright.

  ‘Yes. Except that there’s no way that this shovel was here when we looked for the weapon a couple of weeks ago. I know it wasn’t. I organised the uniforms doing the riverbanks, DC, and this was not here. There is no way it could have been missed. No way.’

  Ford seemed to be taking this very personally, and Smith could guess why.

  He said, ‘If it’s any consolation, I had a walk along here myself yesterday morning, and I didn’t notice it. It’s only half-hidden, and I think I’d have seen it, or the bloke I was with would have done – he doesn’t miss much. I don’t think it was here yesterday, never mind when you carried out the search. I’ll go down and have a look, you stay up here – the fewer feet the better, just in case.’

  He went down carefully, looking before placing each foot in case other evidence lay unseen in the long grass, and as far as possible stepping where Marie Wilkinson had before him. The shovel lay facing down and the dry, brown blotches on the back of it were almost certainly blood-stains. He bent forward and studied the grass around it. Some of the blades were above and over the handle as if they had grown over it - as if it had been lying there for three weeks – but most were trapped beneath the handle and the blade, as they would be if the shovel had been placed there since he had walked along this path yesterday. Most odd. Smith took out his phone, photographed the shovel, the handle and the grass several times, and then handed it up to Richard Ford.

  He said, ‘Call DI Reeve for me, would you?’

  Then he stood and stared down at the murder weapon some more, because he had little doubt in his mind now that this was the thing that had been used to end Mark Randall’s life.

  It was a longer conversation than Smith had expected. During it he had returned to the top of the bank and sent Ford back to Marie Wilkinson with instructions to take her full statement now before offering her a lift back to Lowacre – Cavendish could do that if she accepted, and it was Smith’s guess that she would do so. There would soon be plenty of people around to secure the site.

  Alison Reeve said to him, ‘We’re going ahead with the briefing but you stay there, DC. I’ll come out when the meeting is over. Despite what I said earlier, I’m calling in Superintendent Allen just in case this involves de-arresting Stone – I don’t want to be explaining to him one-to-one later on why I’ve done that, I’d rather him see it for himself.’

  ‘That makes sense now. Stone has the best alibi in the world this time. He was locked up in cell four in Kings Lake Central.’

  ‘Tell me about it…’

  There was a pause while she thought something over, and Smith watched the scene back at the gateway. The two officers and Marie Wilkinson had climbed inside the police BMW. Ford would do a decent job of the statement. And then a vehicle came around the bend from the Lowacre direction, slowed right down while the occupant – he could see there was only a driver – looked at the cars parked in the gateway and then gradually picked up speed again. It was a green Range Rover. The Harpers owned a Range Rover. Ms Wilkinson was perhaps not the only person suffering a severe bout of deja vu this fine morning.

  Reeve said, ‘DC, I know I’ve already asked this, but is there any way this thing could have bee
n missed?’

  ‘Yes. By which I mean it is not inconceivable. Is it very likely? No. Steven Harper and I were here yesterday and neither of us spotted it; farmers tend to notice things on their land that other people don’t and I’m not exactly unobservant when I’m visiting a murder scene, even when I am three weeks late. Other people use this path, from the friary, and I would guess that there are a few dog walkers from the village as well. You know what dog-walkers are like, always finding bodies – they must have been well-annoyed when a jogger found this one. And besides, there’s something odd about the way this thing is lying in the grass.’

  ‘You said that earlier – explain. I’m waiting for John Wilson. He’s going to want all the details of this.’

  Oh yes, John Wilson’s going to be over the moon, thought Smith, especially when you tell him who’s out there directing the operation that might blow his case apart in slow motion.

  ‘Well, the shovel is in the grass but it’s also on it, if you know what I mean. You’ll see for yourself when you get here. If it had been lying here for three weeks, the grass would have grown over it more. June, height of the growing season and all that… I’m cutting my lawn every half an hour. How fast does grass grow?’

  ‘Don’t know. But I’ve a feeling it’s been doing so under our feet on this one. We’ve had no rain, though, for weeks, have we?’

  Smith peered down at the shovel again.

  ‘Good point. If this has been exposed to the elements for three weeks… I wonder how much forensics will be able to tell us about that. Where did Stone’s stuff go – Norwich? If it did, it might be worth getting the shovel to Cambridge.’

  ‘Why? They’re no quicker.’

  ‘No, maybe not, but they’re a long way apart. This could all come down to forensics. Ma’am.’

  That final word his way of reminding them both that he was not in charge of this, though he sensed it, in the back of his mind, the desire to be, because quite unexpectedly this had become interesting.