by Sam Short
Suspecting that drugs were involved, Pepper played along. “I want you to open me,” she announced, in a deep voice. “Grab my handle and swing my hinges.”
“You heard it!” said the other young man. “Open it! It demands it of us!”
Moving slowly towards the door, his eyes wide and never leaving Pepper’s, the bravest brother advanced with his hand held out before him.
When he was only inches from the letterbox, he studied Pepper’s eyes for a few seconds before looking over his shoulder and speaking in a whisper. “Our door has got angry eyes!” he said. “It’s terrifying! Do you think I should open it? Do you think it’s safe?”
“Yes, open it.”
Nodding, the young man with the dark hair turned to face the door again. He stared at Pepper. “Pleased to meet you, Door Number Nine,” he said. “Before I open you, I wish to introduce myself and my brother. I’m Barry, and my younger sibling is Darren. We’ve been very grateful for your protection from the elements and intruders.”
“You’re welcome,” said Pepper, dropping her voice an octave. “It’s been my pleasure.”
“I think the door likes us,” whispered Barry.
“Well open it,” replied Darren. “See what it wants.”
Barry nodded, and Pepper heard the sound of a lock opening as his hand vanished from sight. As the door swung slowly inward, Pepper stood up and gazed down at the man on his hands and knees in the hallway, as he slowly retreated from the door. He looked up briefly, and turned his head away quickly, as if averting his eyes. “How can we help you, Door?” he asked, his head low and grovelling.
“Wait a minute,” said Darren, getting to his feet, and wobbling towards Pepper. “That’s not our door. That’s that woman from the pub last night. The one you said was mutton dressed as lamb.” He shook his head. “How strong is this stuff we smoked?”
“Strong,” replied Barry. He took a deep breath, and moving his head slowly, looked up at Pepper. “Are you our door? Or mutton dressed as lamb?”
Pepper placed her hands on her hips. “I don’t like to think of myself as either,” she said. “I am the lady you saw in the pub last night though, and I’ve come to ask you some questions about why you were arguing with Stan.”
Barry shook his head and got to his feet, his eyes red. “Wait,” he said. “I remember you now. What do you mean you want to ask us some questions about Stan? The police have already asked us some questions about him. He’s dead, you know? Are you the police?”
“Yes, I know he’s dead,” said Pepper. “But I’m not with the police.”
Darren approached the door, colour returning to his cheeks. “Then why do you want to ask us questions? We told the policewoman last night that we went nowhere near the allotments.”
Pepper studied the two brothers. She liked to think that her gut feelings not only stemmed from vibes given to her by plants, but also from her own internal instincts. No, she realised — the brothers hadn’t hurt Stan, but she’d still like to be absolutely certain about that, and she’d like to know why they’d been arguing with him last night.
She gave Darren a reassuring smile. “I know that neither of you had anything to do with what happened to Stan, I only want to ask you some questions.”
“Fifty-quid,” said Barry, holding out a hand. “Give us fifty-quid, and we’ll answer your questions.”
“I’m sorry,” said Pepper. “I don’t carry that sort of money around with me.”
Darren’s eyes moved to the denim bag hanging from Pepper’s shoulder. “What’s in the bag? We’ll only answer your questions if you give us something.”
Pepper smiled. “Can I come in? I’m sure I’ll find something in my bag that you’ll like.”
Barry looked at Darren, and Darren looked at Barry. “Yes,” said Darren. “Come in. I’ll roll us a spliff.”
“No spliffs for me, thank you,” said Pepper, gazing past Darren and into the kitchen which looked cleaner than she’d have expected it to. “I’ll have a cup of coffee instead. If you have any?”
“Of course we have coffee!” snapped Darren. “We’re not heathens!” He looked at his brother. “Barry, please show our guest to the reception room while I prepare her some coffee.”
“Reception room?” said Barry. “What’s one of those?”
Darren pointed to the doorway to the left of Barry. “The room in there. The one with the telly.”
“Oh,” said Barry. “I didn’t know it was called the reception room.”
“Just take her in there, Bazza,” ordered Darren. “I’ll get the coffee.”
Pepper sat next to a cushion emblazoned with the face of a pug, and smiled at Darren and Barry as she reached into her bag. Both brothers, holding what Darren had referred to as fat spliffs when he’d entered the room, watched her intently.
On the floor next to her foot was a chipped mug full to the brim with weak coffee, and while most of the smoke the boys exhaled escaped through the open window behind them, the room still had that flowery aroma which reminded Pepper of her teenage years.
Wondering what on earth she might have in her bag that would tempt two young men in their early twenties, Pepper thrust her hand deep into the interior, smiling as the brothers looked on.
“Whoa!” said Darren, sucking on his spliff. “Your arm’s up to the shoulder in there!”
“I’ve got short arms,” said Pepper, her fingers grazing a plastic package. She grabbed a corner, and pulled it closer to the rim of the bag, peering inside to see what it was.
She smiled. Oh yes, she’d packed two of them when she’d gone through her most recent phase of junk food addiction. They’d been floating around her bag’s second dimension for months, but they’d still be edible. “Will you answer my questions if I give you these?” she asked, remembering how she’d always felt peckish after indulging in a little cannabis when she’d been younger.
Darren’s face broke into a wide smile, and he reached for the packet which Pepper offered him. “Family-sized cheesy puffs!” he said. “I’ll answer any questions you’ve got in return for those, lady!”
As Darren ripped the packaging open, and Barry thrust his hand inside, retrieving a fistful of cheesy puffs in his now orange fingers, Pepper looked at the brothers in turn. “Why were you two arguing with Stan?” she asked.
“Because he had our gear,” said Darren, through a mouthful of cheesy puffs.
“Your gear?” asked Pepper. “What you mean, your gear?”
Barry took a puff of his spliff, and waved it in the air, producing little circles of smoke. “This,” he said. “Our gear. The good stuff. We’d already paid him, but he didn’t have it. He said he wouldn’t be able to get it until the next day.”
“You’re telling me that Stan Wilmot was supplying you with cannabis?” asked Pepper.
Darren took a long puff of his joint and blew out a cloud of smoke, his eyes reddening. “Oh yeah, Stan had the good stuff. The really good stuff. The strong stuff.”
“That’s right,” said Barry. “The stuff Stan could get hold of is powerful. And it got better in the last week or two. People were beginning to come from all over for a bit of Stan’s strong stuff.”
“Stan Wilmot was a drug dealer?” said Pepper.
“No,” slurred Darren, blowing out more smoke, and reaching into the bag of crisps. “Just cannabis. Cannabis isn’t a drug — it’s legal in loads of countries. It’s not like heroin, is it?”
“No,” said Pepper. “It’s not like heroin, but it is illegal, whether you like it or not.”
“Okay, Miss Square,” said Barry. “We get it. You don’t agree with cannabis. No need to bang a downer on us.”
“Whether I agree or disagree with it,” said Pepper. “Is irrelevant. It’s still classed as illegal.” She looked at the coffee near her left foot and decided she wasn’t thirsty enough to risk it. “Where was Stan getting the cannabis?” she asked. “Was he growing it? I don’t think so — I’ve seen inside his shed
, and I’ve seen his allotment plot. Maybe he was growing it at home?”
“He was getting it from his partner,” said Barry, his words becoming more slurred with each lungful of smoke he inhaled.
“His partner?” asked Pepper. “Who was his partner?”
“Nobody knows,” said Darren, sinking deeper into the sofa he shared with his brother. “All we know is that Stan was making a killing. He was loaded. I mean — have you seen that new car he’s got? It must have cost him a fortune.”
“The one you boys threatened to scratch?” said Pepper. “That wasn’t very nice, was it?” She fixed the young men in a stern stare. “You two seemed very angry last night.”
“We overreacted,” said Darren. “We’d had a little too much to drink and not enough gear to calm us down. We didn’t mean anything by it, and as we told the policewoman last night, we went straight from the pub to the kebab shop, and from there we came straight home. We might have threatened Stan and his car, but we didn’t do anything. To either of them!”
As the two boys slumped lower into the sofa, Pepper sighed. “Do you know anybody who might have been angry enough at Stan to have gone to his allotment and confronted him about anything?”
“The copper told us what happened to Stan was probably an accident,” said Darren, his eyes half closed. “You’re acting like it wasn’t.”
Watching the two brother’s mental states deteriorate as they puffed on their spliffs, Pepper felt relieved that unlike some of her teenage friends, she’d only tried cannabis a handful of times, and had never taken it into adult life with her. She shook her head. “I don’t know what happened,” she said, truthfully. “That’s why I’m here. I want to make sure that it was an accident. So, can either of you think of anybody who might have had cause to go to the allotments yesterday with the intention of arguing with Stan?”
“Nah,” slurred Barry. “We keep ourselves to ourselves. It’s the best way.”
With the room filling with smoke, and Pepper’s head beginning to swim, she reached into her bag and fished around for the other packet of cheesy puffs. Retrieving them from her bag with the practised skill of a magician withdrawing a rabbit from his hat, Pepper looked at the brothers. “You two should smoke less cannabis,” she said. “You obviously don’t handle it very well.”
“Whatever, lady,” said Darren, his eyes closed.
Leaving her coffee where it was, Pepper stood up and dropped the packet of cheesy puffs on Barry’s lap. “Eat these when you wake up,” she said. “They’ll make you feel better.”
Receiving only grunted replies, Pepper shook her head. “I’ll see myself out,” she said.
As she closed the front door behind her, she swung the letterbox upward on the single screw it hung from and pushed it into place.
She reached into her bag and found the hammer she’d bought from the hardware store. By tapping around the edge of the letterbox, she was able to ensure it was secure enough to last for the time being.
With her good deed for the day done, Pepper unlocked her bike and headed back towards the town centre. Surely Sergeant Saxon would take more notice of Pepper’s so-called gut feelings when she found out that Stan had been a drug dealer. She’d have to.
Chapter 18
Sergeant Saxon certainly had two sides to her personality. The kind, almost understanding side which Pepper had witnessed no less than an hour before, had given way to the vitriolic and quite cruel version of the policewoman who stood before her now, her eyes narrowed and her finger jabbing. “You have no right to be visiting people who you’ve decided might have had something to do with a crime that the police don’t even believe has been committed. Stan Wilmot died as a result of an accident, and he certainly was not a drug dealer, Miss Grinder.”
“Can you be sure about that?” enquired Pepper.
“I’m shocked that you would come here levelling those sorts of accusations at him, and even more shocked that you would take the word of two brainless cannabis smoking simpletons,” said Sergeant Saxon. “Hardly a word that passes those boy’s mouths is the truth. They’re nothing but trouble, and we leave them alone as long as they leave everybody else alone.
“Yes, cannabis is still illegal in this country, but sometimes it’s better to contain the problem where you can keep an eye on it. As far as I’m concerned, they can stay in that little flat of theirs smoking cannabis. I’ve got bigger fish to fry, but I can assure you that the cannabis those boys are smoking was not obtained from Stan Wilmot.”
“And you’re sure of that because…” ventured Pepper, imagining that a little puff of cannabis might benefit the angry policewoman.
“Miss Grinder,” said Sergeant Saxon, after taking a deep breath. “I’m going to tell you why, and then I’m going to have to insist that you leave this police station and do not come back unless I’ve asked you to because you’ve been caught trespassing in somebody’s garden again. Do you understand?”
Pepper Nodded. “I understand,” she said. She did. Sergeant Saxon had made herself quite clear.
“Very well,” said the sergeant. “I’m sure that the cannabis the boys are smoking was not obtained from Stan Wilmot, because there is simply no evidence suggesting that that is the case. That’s how we work in law enforcement. We look for evidence. Stan’s allotment shed is devoid of any drug-related paraphernalia, as one would expect, and there is simply nothing to suggest he has ever had anything to do with drugs of any description.
“Now, Miss Grinder, I appreciate you throwing yourself into Picklebury community life with such enthusiasm, but I do not want to see you here again without good reason, and I do not want to hear about you visiting people who you consider to be suspects in your imaginary version of how poor Stan died. Do you understand?”
“Loud and clear,” said Pepper. “Goodbye, Sergeant.”
Sergeant Saxon stared at Pepper from the other side of the interview room table. She gave a frustrated sigh. “I’ll see you out,” she said.
Pepper pushed her bike along the path winding its way through Horseshoe Woods. When she arrived at the old oak tree she’d promised herself she’d visit, she placed her bike down gently amongst the wildflowers in the grassy verge and made her way through the bluebells.
She took a deep breath of the cool air as the temperature dropped substantially beneath the shade offered by the canopy of the trees, and enjoyed the earthy scent of wild garlic which filled the air.
When Pepper reached the tree, she did what she always did when she made a new friend. She placed her hand against its rough bark and closed her eyes. When the vibes hit her, she sighed. The tree was older than she’d imagined. It was older than a lot of the buildings it overlooked in the town below the hill, and it was certainly older than any of the other trees which made up the semicircle of woodland.
Recharging her battery was important after such a negative morning, and not wishing to go all the way home just to sit beneath the oak in the meadow behind her cottage, Pepper was glad of the energy the Horseshoe Woods oak provided her.
As she sat at its base, cradled by the beginnings of two large roots, Pepper decided on her plan of action. She was confident that somebody had pushed Stan, and she was equally sure that nobody was going to help her discover who that person might be.
The only thing she could do was to become an investigator of sorts. What were they called on the television? Sleuths? Well, that word sounded a little too much like sloth for her liking, and although Pepper admired a sloth’s tenacity in getting from A to B with its inherent lack of urgency, she considered herself to be a lot quicker.
No, sleuth was not the word for her. Busybody was more like it. She smiled — sometimes it took a busybody to solve a problem.
Of course, there was something else she could do. She could simply forget what the grapevine had told her, and walk away from the whole Stan Wilmot situation. She could go home right now, sit in her back garden with a good book in her hand and Ziggy curled up on her lap,
and forget that she’d ever touched the vine which had been planted on the wrong side of Stan’s shed.
That was not her though, and as she soaked up the aeons old energy which the oak tree emitted, Pepper knew what she had to do. She had to find out what had happened to Stan. It was that simple. It was her duty as the only person alive who knew the truth. The only person the grapevine had informed of the truth.
After sitting beneath the tree for a quarter of an hour, Pepper got to her feet, shook any loose pieces of bark and soil from the back of her jeans and made her way back to her bicycle.
Pushing it up the hill, she was happy that she’d made the right decision about investigating Stan’s death, and if she got in trouble for it, so be it.
When she reached the top of the hill and stared out across the allotments, she was surprised to see the place was empty of people. She looked at her watch. It was almost midday on a Friday. Maybe people only spent their weekends at the allotments, or maybe people were staying away because of what had happened to Stan. Anyway, it was better that the allotments were empty, it would give Pepper a chance to snoop around Stan’s shed without being disturbed by other busybodies.
Steering her bike through the gate, and hiding it behind a water butt, Pepper made her way through the allotments and was sad to see that although the police tape had been cleared away, no doubt after Sergeant Saxon’s visit that morning, some of it remained.
Tied to fence posts and trees, and blowing in the warm breeze like yellow ribbons, the small pieces of tape were the only reminder that something awful had recently happened in the vicinity.
Pepper made a beeline for Stan’s shed, and as she approached, she made sure to look where she was treading before she put a foot down — not sure exactly what she was looking for, but not wanting to ruin any evidence that might be present.
She soon understood what Sergeant Saxon had meant when she’d said there would be footprints everywhere. Everywhere Pepper looked, there was at least one footprint. Footprints led to and from Stan’s shed, turning the footpath into an impossible puzzle of different boot treads and sizes, and Pepper imagined that a lot of them would have been left behind by the police officers and ambulance crew who’d arrived last night.