Water Rites

by Guy N Smith

  Ten

  O’Neal was Enforcement Officer to the planning department; it was a position that carried status, awe and fear if you happened to be in breach of any conditions laid down by the council.

  Tall and taciturn, he had cultivated a military-style moustache that bespoke authority; he had no set routine, only the Planning Officer himself, who spent most of his time away from the office at meetings, or on the golf course had any knowledge of his schedule. Nobody else asked, they weren’t interested.

  Rarely did O’Neal leave a telephone number at which he could be contacted. Several days of the week he never even went into the office, travelled from his home to his various assignments. He investigated complaints, typed up a meticulous and detailed report, and submitted it to the fortnightly meeting. He had no interest in the committee’s decision, his work was done, he could do no more. More often than not, though, his recommendations were used as a yardstick in decision making because he worked strictly to the book. Rules were rules, discretionary decisions were a rare exception.

  O’Neal had been calling upon Maddox, the vagrant, at six monthly intervals for the last few years and still the planning department was in limbo over the hermit’s unauthorized dwelling. It contravened all the rules and guidelines but it was a complex situation. An eviction order could not be served upon the occupant of that ramshackle hut because he was camped illegally upon land belonging to the woodland’s owners; the owners had leased the growing timber to a syndicate who, once the trees had matured and were felled, planned to sell it to a quarrying firm, this being subject to a favourable decision by the planning department for a change of use of the land. Nobody really knew to whom a writ for evicting Maddox could be served and, in any case, the procedure was a lengthy and costly one.

  It was doubtful whether Maddox would ever be evicted but regular visits and requests to leave were imperative should the loophole in the law ever be successfully plugged. In his own way, the Enforcement Officer enjoyed his visits; he always chose a fine day, a walk through beautiful countryside made a pleasant change from calling upon factory and building sites in the heart of the industrial Midlands. Which was why he decided to fulfil his legal requirement while the fine weather still held; it could not be left beyond the end of the year or else the continuity was broken.

  In no way was he sympathetic towards Maddox, no more so than he would have been to hippies, vagrants or squatters. Always his recommendation was that the old man should be evicted as soon as possible; the case was always referred for future reports. Correspondence was entered into between the council and legal representatives of both timber and landowners. Nobody made any progress.

  O’Neal always refused backup, it only served to undermine his own authority, damaged his personal image. There had been a case up north a few years back where some guy had built a bungalow without any planning permission at all. Notice was served, the fellow refused to budge. So, when all the legal formalities had been completed, the Enforcement Officer headed a fleet of bulldozers to effect demolition of the property.

  The inhabitant emerged to confront the deputation. The officer in charge spouted legal jargon from the document in his hand. Press and television crews were in attendance for the issue was an important one that could well influence future cases. Then, without warning, the bearded offender who in some ways resembled Maddox in appearance, produced a wartime Webley .45 service revolver and shot the Enforcement Officer dead.

  From that day on, Enforcement Officers were afforded backup if they felt that they needed it. O’Neal had never requested it, he had every confidence in his own forceful personality. Maddox was no problem, today was little more than a woodland stroll; it was pointless reading the Act to a deaf man, so he would pin it to the tarpaulin entrance flap. The fact that Maddox could neither read nor write was immaterial. You played it by the book, nobody could ask more.

  There was no sign of Maddox. O’Neal pulled open the frayed entrance flap, stared inside. In the far corner was an old mattress with a pile of torn and filthy blankets piled in the middle. A trestle bench, which was remarkably similar to those in the village hall, served as a table, its surface littered with cracked and chipped unwashed crockery. Aplastic container of water and an assortment of rusted tools, probably only the hammer and the screwdriver worked. Underneath was a heap of empty fertilizer sacks, some second-hand plastic binder string.

  O’Neal wrinkled his nose at the smell, stale cooking and unwashed odours which had become trapped inside the makeshift hut. It was as if they had been gathering force poised to escape the moment the flap was lifted. He recoiled from the sudden rush, let the flap fall back into place.

  He fixed the notice to the tarpaulin, stood clear and carefully filled and lit his pipe. He was not obliged to hang around on the off-chance that the occupant might return. In fact, it was a lot easier calling when he was absent. Maddox would probably light his cooking fire with the notice. Or find another use for it.

  O’Neal shrugged, moved away. While he was in the area he would take a look at the old reservoir site, there was an advance application in the office files for it to be sold for building land. No chance, this was Green Belt, building was only permitted in exceptional circumstances and then only on a very limited scale.

  The Enforcement Officer felt decidedly uneasy, as if something was wrong and he had failed to spot it. Or else somebody was watching him; it was probably Maddox spying on him from the cover of the surrounding rhododendrons. His skin prickled briefly and then he was the archetypal planning department officer once again. He feared nobody.

  Barry Jackson did not like driving after dark. Even with his thick-lensed glasses his ageing vision was not to be trusted. He was inclined to use the centre line of the road as a guide, once his side mirror had been clipped by an oncoming car which was being driven in a likewise fashion.

  Approaching headlights dazzled him to the point of blindness, invariably he forgot to dip his own lights and was flashed angrily by oncoming drivers.

  He gripped the steering wheel with grim intensity, clenched his teeth and hunched forward. He always had a headache by the time he arrived at his destination.

  He had begun attending creative writing classes at the further education college for a number of reasons. It gave him a feeling of independence, an incentive that was lacking in his retirement. His wife, Jocelyn, was continually bragging about her amateur artistic achievements; Barry, secretly, didn’t think her work was up to standard but, nevertheless, two of her watercolours had been accepted for a local exhibition. Because, and he smiled to himself, the organizers had experienced difficulty in finding enough entries to make a show of respectability and cover the walls of the village hall.

  Barry had decided that he needed a talent to rival Jocelyn’s self-importance within the bickering family. A published story or article would achieve that aim. Naturally, it would make her jealous but he derived further satisfaction from that prospect. His tutor had complimented him upon his last story and remarked that Barry, at eighty-one, had a gift for writing and had now reached a publishable standard. Next week, Barry decided, he would submit one of his pieces to a magazine.

  Another reason for the twice-weekly evening classes was to get away from Jocelyn for a few hours. Her latest obsession with painting outdoors was a godsend, it gave him a few hours of daytime peace and quietness. But it wouldn’t last, Jocelyn would tire of it, find innumerable reasons to complain, and once this Indian summer gave way to autumn winds and rain, she would be back indoors every day and her incessant carping would start all over again.

  At his age, and in good health, Barry sought the peace and tranquillity which had eluded him in over fifty years of marriage. With hindsight, he would have left his wife half a century ago when, too late, he became aware of her vile temperament, but the stigma of divorce in those days would have jeopardised his career in local government. So, he had stuck it out, his resilience had enabled him to survive.

  Joce
lyn was a bitch, he braked as an oncoming truck came over the brow, shied from its lights. A bitch! She had ruined their only daughter’s life, dominated her in her prime and by the time Barbara was capable of standing up to her mother, eligible men were backing off. Who, for God’s sake, in their right mind would take on Jocelyn Jackson as a mother-in-law!

  Barry was curious about his daughter’s latest boyfriend. Jocelyn was finding fault with the guy already and she hadn’t even met him yet! If Barbara had any sense she would keep the man well away from her mother. All the same, every parent worried about their offspring’s welfare and Barry just hoped that this fellow wasn’t stringing her along just for what he could get. He was confident that Barbara wouldn’t let him have that, she had been too well brought up. A nagging reminder that she had slept out that night when she’d gone to dinner at Packington Hall. Still, Royston Shannon was surely a gentleman and they had doubtless slept in separate bedrooms.

  In any case, it was an honour that such a man had shown an interest in their daughter, Barry was proud of Barbara for that. If it came to marriage, and Barry had long learned to regard that as a remote possibility once Jocelyn began interfering in her daughter’s romances, then he feared for his own future. All too often Barbara had acted as a buffer between Jocelyn and himself when his wife flew into one of her tempers. When that day came he would have to fight a lone battle and he did not relish the prospect. When one was over eighty, one opted for the easy way out; which he had done right from the start and that was why he was still being dominated now.

  The road narrowed as it approached the village of Hopwas, he slowed down to twenty-five miles per hour, anticipated the steep drop down to where the first of the houses began. An accident-prone spot, there had been three fatals in the last couple of years and still the police and the local authorities refused to take any decisive action; in fact, they had raised the speed limit from thirty to forty miles per hour, claimed that drivers didn’t observe it, anyway! And they hadn’t set up a radar trap here for months in spite of an outcry in the Herald.

  It was a place where extreme caution was demanded. He took his foot from the gas pedal.

  Next second he was braking sharply. His reactions were slow but his reduced speed was his salvation. The Rover’s wheels locked, the car slewed and came to a halt within a yard of the object that lay in the middle of the road.

  Barry peered, tried to make out what it was. A bundle of wet rags, something which had fallen off the dustcart crusher, by the look of it. It reminded him of the days of the old “rag-and-bone man,” the horse-drawn cart loaded high with people’s throw-outs, anything from moth-eaten coats to holed socks.

  Well, he couldn’t stop here, it only needed one of those regular maniac drivers to come zipping round the bend and there would be a major crash. Barry decided he could drive round the obstacle if he went on the verge.

  The Rover had stalled, he fumbled to start it. The engine fired, he struggled to pull the steering wheel hard over, it wasn’t easy when one had an arthritic shoulder; he’d ensure that when he changed the car next time he’d go for a model with power steering.

  Something about that heap in the road caught his attention, had him staring at it again in the beam of the headlights. And that was when he saw the crushed human head poking out of the frayed topcoat, sticky tyremarks showing up plainly on the dry road surface.

  Oh, Lord, it’s a man and he’s been run over!

  Barry sat there looking, immobile with shock, tasted bile in his throat. There was a body in the road, there was no doubt it was dead. The victim of a hit-and-run driver. He was the first at the scene, that placed a frightening responsibility upon himself.

  Don’t bother getting out, there’s nothing you can do for him. That made sense, it was a relief, a let-out.

  But you’ll have to go for help. He had already turned the wheels in preparation for mounting the grass verge, all he had to do was to drive the short distance home, call the emergency services.

  Which service do you require, please?

  Ambulance. And the police. There’s a body in the road on Hopwas Hill. Somebody’s run right over it. In all probability somebody else has done it again, splattered it all over the tarmac, you’ll need shovels and plastic bags and …

  A sudden rush of headlights behind, a screech of brakes, tyres squealing. Barry tensed, anticipated the crunching impact, the Rover being shoved forward right onto …

  Somehow the other driver had managed to stop, his car was at an angle, its engine still running. A door opened, Barry was aware that there was a face at the side window. A voice, coarse with anger, “What the hell are you playing, stopping on a bend …” the outburst died away, the other had seen what lay in the road.

  Barry watched, saw a well-built track-suited man move in front of his car; stop, turn back.

  “He’s … dead!” Mouthing at the window.

  Slowly, movement returned to Barry’s limbs, he found the electronic switch that worked the window, lowered it. The stranger was fleshy, his hair lay flat and damp like he’d been playing squash or badminton.

  “You’ve killed ’im, mate!”

  Shock that was worse than previous, an awful realization that had had to be put into words because Barry had never thought of the implication. Until now. His lips moved, he tried to say “it wasn’t me” but the words would not come.

  “We’ll have to call the police, I’ll do it on my car phone,” a status symbol, that was more important than the bloody corpse lying in the road. “You stay where you are, mate, I’ll back up to the bend, park with my warning lights on just in case another car comes.”

  It was like a bad dream, a nightmare that you wanted to wake up from but couldn’t, no matter how hard you tried. Barry sat there, heard the other vehicle reversing. Then just the sound of engines ticking over. The other motorist was doubtless talking to the police now. “Yeah, that’s right, dead as they come, run right over ’is bleedin’ ’ead. An old chap that ’adn’t ought to be drivin’, certainly not at night because ’e can’t see properly.”

  Barry began to tremble violently. He even wished that he was back home with Jocelyn. Doubtless, she’d blame him, too, because she always did.

  The man was returning, he opened the passenger door of the Rover, slid into the seat. Barry could sense the other’s excitement, a buildup of self-importance. I’ll help because it looks good.

  “You okay, mate?”

  Barry nodded his lie.

  “Been drinkin’?”

  “No!” Somehow he managed indignation. “I never drink when I’m driving.”

  “They’ll breath test you, just the same. They always do at accidents. How’d it happen?”

  “I don’t know. I just came round the bend, fortunately I was only doing about twenty-five and …”

  “Looks to me, by the look of ’im, you was doin’ a bit more’n that!”

  “I … didn’t … run … over … him. Somebody else did.”

  The other stared, disbelief on his features. “Oh, I see, it wasn’t you that knocked ’im down, then?” They always say that to begin with.

  “I told you, I never touched him. I found him.”

  After that they sat in an uneasy silence until the police car arrived, followed shortly afterwards by an ambulance.

  As expected, Barry Jackson was breathalysed. The result was negative. An officer checked his tire tread, found that they did not match those which had gone over the victim, crushed his head and stomach.

  Later, in the comfort of his own home, with frequent interruptions, contradictions and suggestions from his wife, Barry made a statement to the police.

  In all probability, they would never trace the hit-and-run driver. The crime detection rate was currently lower than it had ever been. It was blamed on reduced manpower and an alarming increase in lawlessness.

  Detective Inspector Raymond Barr’s investigations into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the woman found in
Holcroft’s field were proving negative. Her identity had been established as that of Sharon Levy, a prostitute living and working in Lichfield. A known drug addict, she had wasted the taxpayers’ money on a fruitless rehabilitation course. She had twenty-two convictions for soliciting, three for being in possession of drugs.

  The post-mortem had revealed that at the time of her death she had been on crack.

  The detective studied the PM report; his only consolation was that it confirmed his initial suspicions. Death by drowning. Her intake of water had been pure, no trace of pollution. Which excluded streams, rivers, ponds. The outdoor possibilities were narrowed to reservoirs.

  His unit had checked all reservoirs within a twenty-five mile radius. Two in Lichfield, Stowe and the Minster, the banks had been checked for any signs of a struggle but none were found; there were no markings on her flesh. Nobody would have had any reason other than murder to transport her body from the scene of her death to a wood-side field.

  He was an experienced-enough officer not to jump to conclusions but the obvious motive could not be ignored. Sharon had been picked up by a client, they had gone back to his place. He had killed her, the possible reasons were many. Drowned in the bath, the body removed to a distant place. The murder need not necessarily be local, it was part of the procedure to check out pure-water sites; investigating every household bath was an impossibility.

  Murder by a person or persons unknown. It would stay on file for perpetuity in case it needed to be compared with any future similar killings. It was probably a one-shot. The chances of the murderer being apprehended were slim but they had to work on it.

  “I thought you ought to see this, sir,” the young DC entered the office, stood before the desk.

  “What is it, constable?” Barr was still staring at the Levy file.

  “You know Maddox, the deaf and dumb vagrant who lived in Hopwas Wood, sir?”