Bones In the River

by Zoe Sharp

“I know!” Yardley grinned. “But will they believe you when you tell ’em that, eh? No chance.”

  “How close is she?”

  “Any day now.”

  “Ah, you’ll have her hospital bag permanently by the front door then?”

  “Nah, she’s hoping for a home birth,” Yardley said. “I’ve got the midwife on speed-dial, though.”

  Which, Nick reckoned, taking another mouthful of tea, was probably the longest conversation he’d had with any of his CID colleagues that wasn’t entirely related to work. But it seemed Yardley was feeling chatty.

  “Heard you had a bit of excitement at your crime scene this morning, eh?”

  For a second, Nick thought he meant the discovery of Eden Man, then realised Yardley was talking about the dramatic arrival of Jordan Elliot’s mother.

  “Yeah, she was lucky,” he said. “If that car had gone anywhere near the river, she could have been fighting social services over the rest of her kids.”

  Yardley took a slurp of his own tea. “Mind you, poor lass, she must be getting frantic by now. Two days and still no sign of the little lad, eh?”

  He sounded genuinely sympathetic. The imminent onset of parenthood was clearly having a humanising effect.

  “What’s the story with the husband—Dylan?” Nick asked, making the most of this unexpected armistice. “He’s certainly a cocky little sod.”

  “Oh aye, he is that,” Yardley said. “Handy with his fists, too, from what I’ve heard. Not above knocking the wife about a bit if she steps out of line, if the rumours are true.”

  Nick frowned. “Has he ever hit his kids?”

  “Heck, I hope not! That would…open up a whole new line of enquiry, eh?”

  Yardley’s phone rang. Nick swung back to his computer, opened up another screen and typed in Dylan Elliot’s name and address. Moments later, he was skimming through the details of the man’s tawdry criminal past. It was, as DI Pollock had suggested, mostly petty stuff involving property theft.

  There were two instances where Dylan had got physical, however. Once when he was arrested fleeing from the scene of a burglary as a teenager and scuffled with the uniforms trying to cuff him.

  The second was only eighteen months previously. During a night out with his mates on a pub crawl in Carlisle, an apparent stranger had accused Dylan of having an affair with his wife. The man ended up losing several front teeth for his trouble.

  The cuckolded husband pressed charges. In court, Dylan Elliot gave every appearance of contrition to get off with a hefty fine and a suspended sentence. One of the witnesses to his good character as both a husband and father was his wife, Yvonne.

  That, in itself, set Nick’s antennae quivering. Something about the way Yvonne had behaved around her husband, when Nick and DI Pollock had called on them at the farm, meant her portrayal of Dylan as a loving family man did not quite stack up.

  But what clinched it was brief testimony from one of the mates Dylan had been out with that night. Not the statement itself—which was of the ‘didn’t see him do anything wrong, yer honour’ variety—but the identity of the man who made it.

  Lisa’s brother, Karl.

  29

  Queenie heard the commotion before she saw it, and then saw it before she realised what it meant.

  It didn’t take her long, though.

  She broke into a run across the camping field, dodging between the horse trailers and vans. The closer she got, the louder the cheers and shouts and jeers. She caught a glimpse of a big man on a big bay horse with a white face and white feathers stretching way up past knee and hock. It was being ridden in tight circles beyond the next row of vehicles. The ground shook to the thunder of hooves the size of dinner plates.

  A Clydesdale. Usually a dray or plough horse, it was not a common breed among the Gypsies and Travellers. Took too much feeding and too much finding space for.

  In fact, there was only one man she was aware of who’d brought one to the Fair.

  Jackson.

  She knew for a fact the horse was more than eighteen hands high but, with the giant on his back, he looked no more than a pony.

  Jackson was up on the horse now, bareback with just a headcollar and a knotted lead rope to guide it by. Making the animal twist and turn so tight, it was a feat of horsemanship. At first, she thought that was plenty to warrant the excitement of the gathered crowd.

  Until she got closer.

  Close enough, that is, for someone to spot her approach and let out a warning, “Uh-oh…”

  Alarmed now, Queenie elbowed her way through to the front. It took her precious moments. People stood their ground, seemed set to block her in a way they wouldn’t have dared while her father was still alive.

  By the time she pushed through the final rank, she was near to both temper and tears.

  What she saw horrified her.

  Bartley had the brood mare by her tether. He’d said he was going to take her down to The Sands, just a little walk to show off both mare and foal—no flash, no dash. Would do no harm to let those who might be interested lay their eyes on Hezekiah’s last colt, with his unique markings and regal bearing. Ocean had a halter on the colt, had led him away proudly, like a rite of passage.

  But they’d run into Jackson on the way. Not just the giant alone but his animal besides. Descended from an ancient warhorse breed with the fire still in his belly and spoiling for a fight.

  Jackson was kicking the Clydesdale on, tugging it round in ever-smaller circles about the frightened mare and her terrified offspring. Bartley was trying to calm the mare and that was bad enough. But it was all Ocean could do to cling on to the rope with the panicking colt at the other end.

  As Queenie gave a cry and launched herself forward, ripping free from the hands that tried to hold her back, Jackson overshot his mark. He let the big horse run on two or three strides, then wheeled and sent it leaping back toward his prey.

  There was nothing Bartley could do to avoid the clash. He had his hands full and more besides. The colt was trying to hide beneath his mother’s belly. She yanked against the man who held her head and strained to swing free. Her hindquarters thumped against the foal, sending both animal and boy sprawling into the path of the thundering Clydesdale.

  Ocean refused to let go while the colt thrashed on the ground, ungainly, letting out a shriek that brought every hair bolt upright on Queenie’s body.

  She threw herself forward, into the path of the oncoming pair. A great shout went up from the crowd of watchers. There are some who believe a horse will do everything to avoid trampling a person. Anyone who knows better will tell you they’re as likely to step onto you as step over you. And there are some who will do so with a song in their heart and come back for a second try.

  The Clydesdale’s head was up and its eyes were wild. Queenie knew she came barely halfway up the horse’s shoulder. It could have barrelled over and through her without noticing the check.

  Still, she stood her ground. Horse and rider were barely a stride away now. She felt the earth tremble beneath her and saw Jackson heave uselessly at the rope tied to the headcollar, in a desperate attempt to turn aside. The colt was still not on its feet, too young yet to have full mastery of his limbs. Ocean hauled on the lead rope in vain.

  And then, for no reason anyone could afterwards name, the Clydesdale bunched itself and sprang sideways, stiff-legged, as if spooked by some unseen predator. The pair passed so close by Queenie that Jackson’s knee just scuffed her shoulder.

  It was a glancing blow—compared to what might have been. All the same, it was hard enough to spin her round and bowl her off her feet.

  And if Jackson hadn’t been born to horses, riding almost before he could walk, he would have hit the ground, too. As it was, he was thrown sideways and held on only by the skin of his teeth. Fifty yards shot past before he got himself back on top and brought the heavy horse skidding to a stamping, snorting halt.

  By that time people had flooded around Queenie,
all talking at once. She struggled to rise, fighting off their insistence that she should lay quiet and still.

  “Ocean! Where is he—?”

  “Me darlin’, he’s fine,” came Bartley’s voice, a near croon.

  “And the colt?”

  “They’re both fine. It’s you that concerns me.”

  He must have handed the mare off to Ocean because all at once he was there. He gathered Queenie up, helped her stand but kept a bruising grip on her arms. “And what the devil were you tryin’ to do, wife—throwing yourself under the very heels of such a beast?”

  “But the colt—”

  “Never mind about that. He’s had a bit of a scare but there’s no harm done, eh?”

  In some corner of her mind, Queenie registered the warning in his tone but she was too far gone to heed it.

  “No harm done?” Her voice rose to a howl. “That matto-mengro… That dinnelo, he almost flattens the pair of us and all you can say is ‘no harm done’?”

  Jackson did not like being called a drunkard or a fool—and certainly not in the presence of the other clans. He nudged the Clydesdale forward with a determined gleam in his eye.

  Bartley thrust Queenie roughly behind him and stepped forward to stand braced in front of them.

  “That wife of yours should watch her tongue,” Jackson said darkly.

  “It’s not my tongue you should be afraid of!” Queenie shot back.

  Bartley spun, grabbed her arms again and pushed her back a pace, almost a shove, then raised his hand as if to strike.

  “Will you be quiet for once, woman, and just be lettin’ me handle this?” he demanded through his teeth.

  Shocked, Queenie complied. She realised then how still the crowd had become, how close they pushed in. All wanting to see. All wanting to hear. She shrank in on herself, aghast.

  “You’re right,” Bartley said, more loudly now, lifting his chin to meet Jackson’s gaze. “She is my wife. And because of that, what she does with her tongue is my business. I’ll thank you to keep yourself out of it.”

  Jackson’s shoulders came back. The Clydesdale shifted, made restless by the tension. Jackson stilled it, glaring down. “You may have married true Romany but that doesn’t make you more than you are, or ever will be. All here will bear witness that you’ll never be anything other than hindity-mengre!”

  Queenie heard the gasps that escaped those around her at his words. As well they might. To call Bartley one of the ‘filthy people’—a name given to vagrant Irish by the Gypsies for their dirty ways—was the gravest insult.

  One Bartley would not be able to let pass unchallenged.

  He spat in the grass at the Clydesdale’s feet.

  “Name your time and place.”

  Afterwards, Bartley would not discuss it with her. Would not listen to her pleas, her arguments or threats. Just like her brother, he’d been taught from a boy never to back down from a fight and he was not about to start now.

  Not least because the choice of new Shera Rom was as yet undecided.

  It was all down to stupid pride, of that she was sure. It was not so much that her husband didn’t like to lose—it was that he hated to lose to Vano. Oh, the two men got along well enough but there had always been a rivalry running close beneath the surface, even so.

  As for Jackson, she held no sway there. She acknowledged privately that her fierce defence of Bartley the day before had made certain the giant would never listen to anything she might have to say.

  Jackson had no wife to whom she could appeal. And the family matriarch was growing physically more frail as she grew more set in her ways. Both meant she had refused to travel to this year’s Fair.

  So, Queenie was on her own…

  She’d spent some time with the mare and the colt, settling and calming them after their scare. Then she wandered alone down to The Sands and walked the rows of horses and ponies on display there. Nothing matched the colt for quality, in her opinion, which was both reassuring and disheartening.

  Reassuring because it meant the colt was more likely to sell—and for a good price.

  And disheartening for exactly the same reason.

  Further along the row, she saw the big bay Clydesdale tied to a tree amid the smaller animals, like a truck parked among cars. It was directly across from one of the pubs. Not hard to guess where Jackson would be right now.

  She was still smarting from the whole encounter, not least for the humiliation of being seen to be put in her place. Nevertheless, she remembered the way the heavy horse had shied at the last moment to avoid her—her and the fallen colt.

  It would have been ungrateful not to thank him.

  With care as to who might be watching, she sidled over to the horse. It turned toward her as she neared, swinging that huge head round to meet her, lowered so he offered her the sweet spot behind the ears. She rubbed the sweaty patch beneath the strap of his headcollar obligingly. He leaned in toward her, eyes shut.

  Despite herself, Queenie smiled. She murmured praise to the huge animal for his gentleness and bravery.

  “And don’t you let him hurt me and mine, hm?” she added. “You hear?”

  The Clydesdale rubbed his brow against her hand another couple of times, up and down. She knew, honestly she did, that he was simply scratching an itch.

  But, still, she could have sworn that he was nodding.

  30

  Grace was almost home. Tallie, off her lead and feathering back and forth across the grass verge ahead, reached the gateway and came to an abrupt halt. By the way the dog lowered her head and stood with the hair up in a mini-Mohican at the back of her neck, Grace knew she had a visitor.

  And that the visitor was male.

  Since she acquired the young Weimaraner only after her divorce, Grace had been accused—not least by her ex-husband—of training the dog specially to react that way. Grace denied it. After all, there were times when such behaviour was not an asset.

  She clicked her fingers but for once Tallie was too fixated on the new arrival to obey the command to come. At least she didn’t advance any further. Grace hurried the last few yards and bent to clip the lead onto the dog’s collar.

  “Nice to see she hasn’t forgotten me,” Nick said, his voice dry.

  Grace straightened. A vehicle she didn’t recognise was parked in her driveway. Nick leaned against it with his arms folded.

  “That’s not your car, is it?”

  He nodded to the dog, who still hadn’t moved but was now growling softly. “What—you think she simply doesn’t approve of my choice of transport?”

  “That’s always a possibility,” Grace agreed. “It’s not a patch on the Subaru. What’s happened to it?”

  “Your boss happened,” Nick said darkly. He gave her the bones of the story while she unlocked the door to the cottage and shed her boots in the tiny hall. She had to shoo the dog ahead of them into the living room. Tallie kept wanting to stop and herd the interloper back out of the door. Eventually, she retreated to her bed near the sofa and watched the goings on with anxious, gold-coloured eyes.

  “I know the breed is supposed to be smart but you can’t blame poor Tallie if she’s forgotten you,” Grace said, moving round the breakfast bar into the kitchen area. She ducked into the fridge and came out with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. “It has been a while, hasn’t it?”

  She made sure to keep the reproach out of her tone. When she was off work through injury the previous summer, Nick had been a regular visitor. Tallie had learned, if not to welcome him, then at least to tolerate his presence.

  The dog stayed indoors with more than a hint of a sulk about her, while Grace dug out two glasses and led the way onto the small flagged area outside the French windows. It was late afternoon. The fierce grip of the day had begun to loosen and, with a gentle breeze rustling through the garden, it was a pleasant spot to sit.

  “I confess I’ve never noticed Chris Blenkinship was any worse a driver than anyone else,” she said now
, pouring a modest glass for them both. “Although, if I voiced such a possibility I’ve no doubt his masculine pride would be mortally wounded.”

  Nick took a seat at the wrought-iron garden table. “It almost felt like he did it deliberately.” He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. There was just something slightly off about the whole thing.”

  “Well, there’s nothing to say he wasn’t having a thoroughly bad day before he hit you and that just put the icing on it. Who knows what else might have gone wrong for him?”

  Nick frowned. “Hm. I suppose so. I did wonder… I remember years ago, not long after I joined the force, having to deal with a road accident where some woman claimed this guy flashed her out of a junction, then drove straight into the side of her.”

  Grace raised her eyebrows along with her glass. “Did you get to the bottom of it?”

  Nick took a sip of wine, paused a moment to savour and swallow. “We caught him on CCTV hitting a traffic bollard earlier the same day.” And at Grace’s frown, he added, “Turned out he only had third-party cover, so he needed to engineer a claim on someone else’s insurance for the damage, or pay for it himself. Happens more often than you think.”

  “Ah. But surely Chris doesn’t have that kind of problem? You said he was driving his work vehicle. They’re covered every which way.”

  “I know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s just his ego at play here—Brian Pollock seemed to think so.” He held his glass up to the light, looked at the translucent colour of the wine. “Speaking of inflated egos…how’s your ex?”

  “Max is fine—as far as I know. I haven’t seen him recently,” Grace said sedately. She smiled. “In fact, it would rather seem that he’s been directing his charm at another woman.”

  Nick leaned back in his chair and regarded her with a quizzical eye.

  “Why do I get the feeling there’s more to that than—?”

  “My mother. He’s been thoroughly ingratiating himself.”

  “Uh-oh. Is that going to make life awkward for you?”