Bright Young Things

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Go on,’ Henry told him. ‘You can speak freely; your thoughts will not be shared.’

  The young constable still looked uncomfortable but he nodded. ‘There were three of us came down the slope – the farmer and his son-in-law were already here. This was before the inspector came, it was just after the crash, so I suppose you could say we were seeing it fresh and he was seeing it after.’ He looked faintly relieved, Henry thought, as though he had suddenly found an excuse for the senior police officer’s lack of judgement.

  ‘It always helps to see a scene when it is fresh,’ Mickey confirmed. ‘Go on, lad, tell us what you saw.’ Henry was aware of Mickey’s attention suddenly being fixed on him. ‘Perhaps we can sit ourselves comfortably, while you take us through it,’ he added, indicating a couple of fallen logs close by.

  Gratefully, Henry lowered himself on to one of them and Mickey perched close by. The constable, after a little hesitation, seated himself on the other and then pointed back up the hill. ‘We came down where I brought the two of you today. Mr Carter, the farmer, and his son-in-law – they were already down here and the fire was out.’

  ‘Out. Car fires are usually fierce,’ Henry said thoughtfully.

  ‘Which was our thinking. But Mr Carter and his son-in-law, they had beat out the flames with branches pulled from the trees nearby. They’d attacked them like we attack grass fires in high summer, we get them up on the high moors. Grass fires aren’t so bad, but once it gets in the peat, well that’s another matter, but everyone round here knows what they must do when they see a fire. And they had the water from the stream. It’s too shallow to be of much direct use, but they were able to soak the car blankets. They grabbed them from the back seat, soaked them and used them to help smother the flames.’ He paused and Henry could see that he was looking from himself to Mickey and seeing if they would grasp the importance of his words.

  ‘That was brave,’ Mickey said. ‘The car had rolled so there would have been fuel spilt everywhere.’

  ‘You could smell it,’ the constable confirmed. ‘They were scared in case the whole lot went up, but Mr Carter served in the war, he got medals and everything. He’s a brave man. He said he could see the young woman was dead, but he was scared in case they couldn’t get the young man away, not without help, the slope being so steep, as likely he would have been killed as well. Mr Carter said he couldn’t countenance that.’

  That sounded like a direct quote, Henry thought.

  ‘And he said the fire weren’t that big, not like you’d expect a car fire to be. That’s how come they were able to get the blankets. One had been thrown out but one had caught fast and was still in the car.’

  Henry nodded his understanding. ‘And yet the body was badly burnt?’

  The constable hesitated again, and then he said quietly, ‘There was a haystack fire two years ago – a vagrant gone to sleep in the stack. You know, maybe, how hot some of them can get. The stack gets damp, it can burst into flame.’

  ‘And is that what happened?’

  ‘Either that, or he dropped a cigarette, whatever way the whole lot went up and the man was dead. He’d probably been drinking, probably didn’t wake up. I hope he didn’t wake up. But I saw the body, saw how deep the burns went in some places but not so deep in others. When we moved him his skin kind of split and inside, inside you could see that it was still blood and organs and everything, and then in other places he was like charcoal all through, where the burning went deep, even in those parts of the body where you could still see redness inside.’ Again, he looked from one to the other as though questioning that they understood, confirming that he wasn’t speaking out of turn.

  ‘We have both seen dead bodies, burnt bodies,’ Henry confirmed. ‘And yes, it is often strange which parts of those bodies are still … moist inside and which are burnt crisp. The post-mortem often reveals where the fire began and can be tracked by looking at the pattern of burning. And how did this body look, compared to the one you witnessed before?’

  ‘We all thought, Mr Carter and his son-in-law, and the other constable with me – we all thought it didn’t look right. The seat she was sitting on was burned, the carpet on the floor of the car was burned and the inside of the door. The driving seat too – the flame had taken hold there and she was burned all over, all her body, all her clothes, her hair. Her head had been badly smashed, you could see that, but like I told you, the car must have rolled. The rest of the car … it was like the flames hadn’t travelled, like they hadn’t had time to take hold. But that was a strange thing, you see, if her body was burned like that, if the flames had been that fierce on her body then why hadn’t it spread? I think if Mr Carter and his boy hadn’t arrived so prompt like, it would have done because like the sergeant said, there was fuel everywhere. You could smell it in the grass, the back seat of the car, you could see it in the stream, but Mr Carter and his son-in-law put it out. Though they’d struggled with it, the two of them had put it out completely. You could smell the fuel on the body as well. Even after the fire was extinguished, you could smell it on the seats and on the body.’

  Henry didn’t bother to ask the constable if he was certain. The younger man had obviously struggled with all of this – and with the casualness of the investigation that had first taken place, Henry guessed.

  ‘Did you search the area?’ he asked.

  ‘Not immediately, sir – our concern was getting the young man out of the valley. He was unconscious, his head was bleeding, and it was clear there were bones broken. The doctor arrived, and an ambulance a little bit after. We laid him on a blanket and six of us carried him up the hill.’ He laughed shortly. ‘He was not a big young man, but he felt like he weighed a ton while we were trying to carry him up the hill.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Henry looked somewhat apprehensively back the way they had come wondering if he would need carrying. He reminded himself that his legs were still perfectly sound. They just felt as though he had walked for miles. It would, he thought, take time to get his fitness back.

  ‘By that time it was getting dark, there was only so much we could see, even with flashlights and then we got orders we were to wait for the man from London, for the inspector to come. Inspector Shelton arrived the following day and we brought him out here in the afternoon. The young woman, she was still in the car.’ This was something that obviously troubled him. ‘We covered everything down with tarpaulins but we thought the most important thing was to get the living out of the valley and leave the dead for after, so we left a guard of two constables overnight and then we brought Inspector Shelton straight down after lunchtime.’

  ‘So he had seen the scene almost intact,’ Henry said. ‘Did he take the photographs himself?’

  ‘He had a sergeant with him – he took the pictures. I’m sorry I don’t remember his name.’

  Henry tried to remember if the sergeant’s name had been in the records and came to the conclusion that it definitely had not. He was momentarily irritated with himself for not asking Shelton who had gone up to Derbyshire with him. If it had been a sergeant from Central Office then he could be easily tracked down, but it was possible he had borrowed a local man as this had not been a murder investigation. That Shelton had been there at all was, as he had said, simply down to the fact that these were young people with power and money, connections and contacts, and their families had no doubt kicked up a fuss.

  Stiffly, aware that if he sat down for any longer he would not get up again, Henry got to his feet. ‘No doubt when the area was searched last year the foliage would have been dense,’ he said, ‘seeing as it was early autumn. It is sparser now; it is possible we might find something that was missed. It’s worth a look. Can you show us where the young man was lying?’

  The constable remembered the spot; he had re-marked it well, between two small saplings and in among fresh brambles. At this time of year the brambles were brown and perhaps less fearsome but, Henry thought, ruefully sucking his hand, they were still fi
erce and sharp. He pulled a fragment of cloth from a thorn and examined it carefully. It looked like blue silk and a little further on they found the remains of a woman’s stocking.

  ‘Apparently there was a picnic basket and two overnight bags in the car?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘The picnic basket was strapped to the boot, on the outside; the bags were probably inside. The boot had unlatched as the car rolled – one bag had been thrown out, the other had caught on the latch but had split and there were clothes strewn about the place. Men’s clothes,’ he added. ‘The lady’s bag, that was over there, half in the stream, just beyond where the car landed, and it had burst open, but there was still clothing in the case. It had one of those strap things, with a clasp on each side of the case when it was opened.’

  ‘Was there a handbag, anything of that sort?’ Mickey asked.

  The constable thought about it then shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t remember there being anything like that in the car, and if it had fallen out, we didn’t find it.’

  ‘How far about had things been spread?’ Henry asked.

  ‘About halfway down the hill, and as wide as that stand of silver birch over that way, and where we just sat down on those logs on this side.’

  For the next twenty minutes or so they wandered along the valley floor, looking for anything that might have been hidden in the undergrowth during the first search. It was Mickey who found the compact. It was lying some distance away, open and the mirror smashed as though it had been thrown with some force against the ground. The three of them examined it where it lay before Mickey carefully scooped it up and put it in a bag.

  ‘A brass compact, cheap and of little value,’ Henry said.

  ‘Not the kind of thing that would have been owned by Faun Moran, that’s a certainty,’ Mickey said. ‘It’s the kind of thing a working girl would buy at Woolworths.’

  ‘You think it might belong to whoever that poor young lady was?’ Constable Burton asked.

  ‘It’s entirely possible,’ Henry said. ‘Perhaps it is a clue to her identity.’ He hoped it might be. It saddened him that so many went to their graves unknown and unmarked. Bodies pulled from the river or found dead in derelict buildings. She had to have come from somewhere, he told himself, but then, so did all of those other lost souls. Resolutely he put the thought aside. It was dusk by the time they got back to the car. It had started to rain and Henry was exhausted. He had allowed the other two to assist him on the last part of the climb, though it hurt his pride. Constable Burton, to give him his due, had been matter-of-fact about the process; Mickey had been concerned. ‘You’ve overdone it,’ he had growled. ‘Tomorrow you must rest up. And we haven’t finished with today yet.’ There was still the visit to Fred Birch at the garage and Farmer Carter and his son-in-law. Vaguely Henry wondered if it was acceptable to ask to be left in the car while his very competent sergeant and also very competent constable took over, but he decided it probably wasn’t.

  The little garage-cum-filling station that belonged to Fred Birch was a couple of miles along the narrow road at the edge of the next village. He had two petrol pumps, and what would seem to be a thriving repair shop behind. A mechanic was dealing with a car lifted on to a ramp and another was tinkering with an engine that looked much more agricultural. Fred Birch himself was a little man, small and wiry with dark eyes that came alive when Henry complimented him on his business. He led them through to a tiny office, boiled an ancient kettle and made strong tea while Constable Burton explained to him what they had seen that day and what he had told these two officers from London.

  ‘I’m told you fetched the car out of the valley,’ Henry said.

  ‘We did, yes. And a job and a half that was. Took us most of the day. We had to do it in stages, bringing it up part way and then let the winch and generator cool down before we brought in the rest. It took three of us to get it out of the beck and we pushed it as far as we could before we could fit the winch to anything. You have to understand, we got an A-frame winch and a portable generator fixed solid on the ground about halfway up the slope, then we winched the car up, locked it off so it couldn’t roll back, then moved the A-frame further up and eventually we got it to the top. I wanted to do it in two halves, cut the whole bugger up and bring it up in sections, but we had our orders that we couldn’t do that. The car had to be brought up in one go.’

  ‘Orders from who?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Why, the father of the young fella that was driving it. He paid for the operation, paid for the extra generator to be brought in. I told him when he came to see me no way could we winch by hand up that slope, not and live to tell the tale. We needed power and you can’t winch with a vehicle, it’s not like you’re pulling something on to the low-loader on the flatbed. You’ve seen that valley, you’ve seen the drop-off, so you can imagine what a tough time we had. Give him his due though, he paid for the best equipment that could be had locally and he paid us all well. I told him, the car was buggered, bring it up in bits. It was clear it would have to be written off but’ – he shrugged – ‘he had the money, I had the expertise, and we got the job done.’

  ‘Where was the car taken to after that?’

  ‘Mr Everson wanted it taken to their estate so that’s what I did. Parked it up in an old barn about a mile from the house. He was there to supervise along with half a dozen of the estate workers. They got it off the truck, shut it in and to my knowledge it might still be there. I just took the rest of my pay and went.’ Fred Birch paused and then said, ‘He said if I went to the kitchen they’d see me fed and watered before I went on my way but’ – he shrugged – ‘to be truthful I just wanted to be out of there. Some places there is only grief. I saw enough grief in the war, I don’t want no more of it. I tend to step away from it when I can, if you know what I mean.’ He looked keenly at the two police officers and then added, ‘I don’t suppose you get much opportunity to step away in your job.’

  ‘Not a lot,’ Mickey said cheerfully. ‘We just have to hope some good comes out of our interference.’

  ‘And what was your impression of the damage to the car?’ Henry wanted to know.

  ‘Well, it had obviously rolled down the slope, not slid. It had turned a few times, judging by the bending and the damage. It’s an open-top vehicle, so the young fella had been thrown clear, though that was strange, I’d have expected him to be further up the slope, thrown out first. You think about how it must come off the road I’d have expected the front end to drop down, being the heaviest and the back end to go somersaulting over the top of that, so the first roll, if you like, would have been more end over end than side over side, if you get my meaning. The front of the car was stoved in, the engine partly pushed back into the passenger space, so they was lucky not to be crushed. The way I figure it, they must have tipped forward, flipped and then rolled, like I said side over side and the young woman’s ankle had got caught under the seat and that held her in place so she must have rolled with it all the way down the hill. Then the fire started, I suppose, when they hit the bottom.’

  ‘But the fire was peculiarly focused,’ Henry put to him.

  ‘It seemed to me,’ Fred Birch said slowly, ‘and I’m no expert in this, you understand, that the fire seemed to have begun with the young lady, not with the petrol tank, which is where you would have expected. The tank had cracked, but not split open, and though there was fuel everywhere, it was not as bad as it could have been had the tank split. You could have smelled it had you been there, and arguably it’s a miracle the valley wasn’t burnt. In a dry season it would have been, but it had been a wet June and for that we must be thankful. Carter and his lad, they were keen to stop the fire and it’s as well they did. Had they been a few minutes later, my guess is there would have been nothing they could have done except get out the way.’

  ‘And that might have been the most sensible course of action, even so,’ Mickey put in.

  The three of them considered this for a moment or t
wo, and Henry asked if there was anything else he could add but it seemed he could not. Then, since the Carters were expecting them, they went on their way.

  ‘I always admire people that can fix things,’ Mickey said. ‘If I ever leave the police force, I fancy a job mechanicing.’

  ‘It was interesting what he said, that to his eye the fire began with the woman and not with the car.’

  ‘Interesting indeed, but I’m not sure how much further it gets us. What was also interesting is that Everson Senior wanted the car intact. Do you think he had it examined?’

  ‘But for what? His son was blamed for driving too fast while drunk. It’s an easy explanation – what reason would he have to doubt it?’

  ‘Perhaps someone described the scene to him and cast doubt,’ Mickey said. ‘It’s becoming clearer and clearer that someone managed that scene, just as they staged the placing of the young woman on the sand. It is as if they’re leaving a trail for us.’

  ‘A little fanciful,’ Henry said. ‘If someone wanted us to know something, why not just write a letter?’

  ‘Because people never do,’ Mickey told him. ‘Human nature is never plain and simple. Folk always go in a roundabout way to get to where they ought to be.’

  He sounded, Henry thought, quite satisfied with that fact, and Henry suspected Mickey enjoyed life’s complications and would not have it any other way.

  To get to the Carters’ farm they had to backtrack towards the crash site, and then Constable Burton turned off into an almost invisible opening and they found themselves on a cart track. After a few hundred yards the land opened out and the farm was revealed and Henry realized that they were roughly above the crash site but higher up the hill, in fact on top of the hill. He would never have guessed that the farm could be here after the enclosure of the tight road and woodland, but this high up the land was exposed and he could imagine in winter would be bitterly cold. It was rugged land with outcroppings of stone and tough little sheep and the Carters’ farm seemed built of much the same gritstone as the land they worked. Carter himself was a tall man, muscular and thickset, his son-in-law was introduced as Owen Blake, a sinewy man, obviously used to heavy labour. Henry could glimpse two women working in the backyard, hanging washing on a long line, the sheets almost dragged from their hands by the strong wind. Further down the hill he had not been aware of just how blustery the day was, or how frigid. He shivered and realized that he was being surveyed critically by Carter and a little more sympathetically by his son-in-law.