Rather to Be Pitied

by Jan Newton

  Morgan Evans rolled his eyes and Julie laughed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Day One

  Julie chased the last grains of risotto rice round her plate and picked up her wine glass. ‘You’re getting better at this cooking thing,’ she said. ‘You’d never know that was veggie.’

  Adam carried both plates to the sink. ‘Thank you for the back-handed compliment,’ he said, gazing at the pile of pans and chopping boards balanced on the draining board. ‘And you’d never know that you’d agreed to do the washing up.’ He sighed. ‘There’s nothing wrong with vegetarian food either. It’s not all lentils and mushrooms, you know.’

  ‘You have to admit though, you do get through the lentils. And the beans.’

  ‘You like beans.’

  ‘Only baked beans, preferably cold and straight from the can.’

  ‘You’re a heathen. And that rather splendid risotto you just devoured was actually vegan.’

  ‘I’ve told you. You’ll not convince me in a million years to go vegan. I need bacon butties and shepherd’s pie, there’s no way I can think on a diet of rabbit food.’

  ‘Your little grey cells will be fine with plant-based sources of protein, believe me.’ Adam dribbled washing up liquid onto the plates in the sink and turned on the tap. ‘Your diet is horrendous.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my diet. It’s better than a lot of people’s.’

  ‘It’s better than Helen’s, I’ll grant you that. God knows what she’s eating now you’re down here. At least you cured her of the Mars bar for breakfast habit. She’ll be back on the kebabs and the stuffed-crust pizzas by now.’

  ‘I should see if there’s a job going at the station for you. You’re like the food police. There must be nothing worse than a newly converted vegan. And just so you know, I absolutely refuse point blank to feel guilty about pizza.’

  ‘It’s your body, it’s up to you whether you want to look after it.’ Adam rinsed a plate under the tap and gave her his you know I’m right expression. God, he was positively angelic when he got going. It almost made her want to take up smoking.

  ‘What can you tell me about the Monks’ Trod?’ she asked.

  ‘Are you changing the subject by any chance?’

  ‘Possibly.’ She smiled as he pulled off bright orange rubber gloves and folded them carefully over the tap. ‘But I’m serious. We were out there today and I’d love to know what made people totter about up there centuries ago, and why they still do. There’s absolutely nothing for miles. Except mud and very smelly water.’

  ‘So there’s been foul play in the Cambrian Mountains.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Come on, Jules, you know I’ll find out by this time tomorrow, anyway.’

  ‘Even though you’re in school tomorrow? Do you think the jungle drums will reach you that fast down in Builth then?’

  ‘You never know. Anyway, I might feel the need to go for a long bike ride after school. For training purposes. There are some brilliant hills over that way.’

  Julie shook her head, but she was smiling. ‘OK. You win. Yes, there has been foul play in the Cambrian Mountains. Possibly. Up above Pont ar Elan. We don’t know yet and it could quite easily be natural causes, although Swift is not chuffed at that idea, obviously. I’m off to the post mortem first thing, and the others are making a start asking questions in Rhayader and Pontreedsomething.’

  ‘Do you know who it is?’

  ‘It’s probably just a walker who was taken ill out there on his own. Poor old thing.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, I say old, but there’s nothing of him. He’s probably much more likely to be a teenager.’

  Adam poured more wine into Julie’s glass, screwed the top back on the bottle, returned it to the fridge and sat back down at the table. ‘Well I don’t know a huge amount about it,’ he said. ‘I do know the track was part of a longer one, leading from the abbey at Strata Florida to the one at Abbeycwmhir, hence the Monks’ Trod. I think it was Benedictine monks who used it originally, and then after the dissolution of the monasteries, it became more of a drovers’ road.’

  ‘And what did the drovers actually do?’

  ‘They moved livestock for a living, cattle and sheep and even geese. On foot, can you believe that? They even took them as far as London. Can you imagine how hard that must have been? It’s got to be two hundred miles from here.’ Adam was suddenly animated, in teacher mode. ‘They used dogs to help them – corgis a lot of the time – and when they got to London, they’d just send the dogs back. On their way home, the dogs would stay in the same lodgings they had stayed in with their masters on the way down.’

  Julie laughed. The kids would love it, imagining corgis running about all over the country looking for digs. They’d love Adam’s enthusiasm too. ‘I’m glad you don’t know very much about it.’

  Adam looked hurt until he saw her face and he smiled. ‘Yeah, all right, Sergeant Sarky, but I can find out more for you. I’ll go to the reference library in Brecon tomorrow and check it out.’

  ‘And there I was, wondering what you’d do with yourself all summer. You’re loving this, aren’t you?’ She laughed, but Adam’s features had rearranged themselves into a frown. She bent to get a better look at him but he moved his head away.

  ‘Jules.’ Adam picked at the corner of his place mat and looked away, out of the window to the hills beyond.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I don’t want you to over-react. Promise me you’ll stay calm.’

  ‘What have you done, ordered yet another bike? Bought a new wetsuit? Told your mum and dad they can stay for a month?’

  ‘Seriously, Jules, I need to tell you something important.’

  Julie leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. Her stomach was suddenly doing somersaults.

  ‘This sounds ominous.’

  ‘No, honestly, it’s really not that bad. The thing is… I just don’t want you to find out any other way and get the wrong idea. You know what you’re like with that imagination of yours.’

  ‘Find out what, Adam?’ There was no response, and he still refused to meet her gaze, so Julie bent forward, into his eye line. ‘What is it?’ Adam looked down at the table and fiddled with his mat until she slid it out of his reach. ‘Tell me. Is there something wrong with you?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s fine. Everything’s good, nothing to worry about, honestly. But you need to know in case there are phone calls.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Just in case she phones.’

  Julie’s hand tightened round her wine glass. ‘She?’

  ‘She’s just being daft. It won’t come to anything.’

  ‘You’re not trying to tell me that she’s at it again? It’s her, isn’t it, it’s bloody Tiffany.’

  Adam nodded miserably. ‘You know what I told her at the Christmas party. I couldn’t have made it any clearer that it was over, could I? And there was no doubt she definitely got the message, given the names she shrieked at me as she left the pub. And that was months and months before we moved here. And I showed you the letter I sent her in January. For God’s sake, you even edited it.’ Adam stopped and took a much-needed breath, finally meeting her stare. ‘And before you ask, yes, I did post it.’

  Julie took a large gulp of wine. ‘So, what’s the barmy cow done now then?’ She willed herself not to over-react, not to pick up the wine glass with its slender pale green stem and hurl it at the newly decorated wall.

  ‘It’s nothing much, honestly, she’s just been texting again.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  Adam shrugged. ‘She said she needed to talk to me.’

  ‘And that was all?’

  ‘She said she had something to tell me and that she would rather do it face to face.’

  Julie stared at him. ‘And what do you think that could be, Adam?’

  ‘I have no idea, but I’d lay odds it’s not what you’re thinking.’

  ‘How do you know what I’m thinking?’
/>   ‘I know you. And to be fair, I’d be thinking the same thing, except that I know it’s not possible.’

  Julie watched his face. ‘But you said you’d changed your phone number.’

  ‘I did change it. Don’t be soft, Jules, you know I’ve got a different provider, a new number, everything.’

  ‘So how has she got hold of your new number?’ Julie wanted to reach for the glass again but instead she forced herself to sit still and breathe slowly and evenly. He’d promised he wouldn’t ever stray again, hadn’t he?

  ‘Adam, how has she found you?’

  Adam looked up at the ceiling. When he eventually faced her again, she knew from experience that he was telling her the truth. ‘It was Fran.’

  ‘Hadleigh High Fran?’

  Adam nodded. ‘Tiff was in doing some supply teaching, just after the May half term, and she persuaded Fran she needed Derek Jamieson’s number to talk to him about a pupil of his. Fran said Tiff was worried about the girl, she thought she might be being abused at home. Fran says she just brought the staff phone book up on the computer with Tiff standing there and didn’t think anything of it.’

  Julie refolded her arms and leaned back in her chair. ‘And what with your number being next on the list to good old Mr Jamieson’s?’

  ‘I knew you’d be able to work it out.’ Adam gave a little smile and waited for Julie to reciprocate. She didn’t. ‘But what do I do about it?’

  Julie unfolded her arms, rested both elbows on the table and gazed at him, using the blank stare she used to make suspects squirm in interview rooms. It had the desired effect. ‘She doesn’t know your address?’

  Adam blushed and shook his head. ‘Fran had only put the phone number on the list in case of any queries but she hadn’t put our new address on the computer, thank God.’ He traced the edge of the table with his finger. ‘She said she couldn’t spell it. So no, Tiffany doesn’t know where we live.’

  Julie nodded. ‘Good. That’s something, at least. Let’s hope it stays that way. You’d have thought a school secretary would be a bit more cautious with personal details, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Oh come on, Jules, that’s not fair. You know Fran, she’s so careful with any information about the kids. She was just trying to help. You’d never imagine that you’d have to keep a teacher’s details private from a colleague, would you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ Julie arched an eyebrow. ‘So what did you do when you got the texts?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘You haven’t replied to her?’

  ‘Well, yeah, I did reply to the first couple, just to tell her to leave me alone, but I’ve not answered the rest. I promise.’

  Julie stood up and walked to the fridge. She retrieved the wine bottle and filled her glass almost to the brim, leaving the chilled bottle on the table. She could see Adam resisting the urge to slide a coaster under it, but he stayed where he was.

  ‘Say something, Jules.’

  ‘What do you want me to say? You promised me before we even moved here that it was all over.’ She shrugged. ‘If I hadn’t believed your promise, then I wouldn’t be here would I? If you really haven’t said anything to encourage her, then it’s not going to be a problem, is it?’ Julie watched Adam relax as though someone had released the stopper from a beach ball.

  ‘Thank you.’ He leaned across the table and gave her free hand a clumsy squeeze. ‘I didn’t know what you’d say.’

  She shook her head and picked up her glass, sipping slowly. ‘I wasn’t too sure either, to be honest.’

  Adam’s lopsided grin was one of the things that had made her fall for him in the first place and he knew when to use it. ‘So what can we do?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything we can do, is there? If she’s only sent a couple of texts and you’ve left her in no doubt as to where she stands, then we just have to hope she’ll get the message. If she’s no idea where you live, then what can she do?’

  ‘Julie Kite, I don’t deserve you.’ Adam kissed the top of her head and then sank back down into his chair.

  ‘You don’t, Mr Kite. Now pass me the Pringles.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Day Two

  Julie had set the alarm for 6am. Dr Greenhalgh wasn’t one to hang around, whether she was driving her sporty Alfa Romeo or delving into the mysteries revealed by close examination of internal organs. Julie knew from experience that her meticulous ministrations would begin at eight o’clock sharp. Adam was already up, banging around in the kitchen, directly below their bedroom. From the clatter of cafétière and the gentle squeak of the fridge door, she gauged that breakfast would arrive in around two minutes. She lay back on the pillows and sighed. How on earth would they begin to find out what happened to the decomposing soul up there in the peat? Where would they start with all that empty land with no people to question? What were the chances of a witness having seen anything? What was he doing up there with no belongings? Where did he come from?

  She could hear Adam bound up the stairs and flick the door latch. He plonked the breakfast tray on the bed and whipped the curtains open so that sunlight poured in, making Julie screw up her eyes.

  ‘There’s nothing like being woken up gradually, is there?’ she said.

  Adam sat down on the bed. ‘I know how you hate to be late, I’m just speeding things up a bit for you.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve been out on the bike already?’

  ‘I have. And in less than a fortnight I won’t need to get up at 5am. Not with six weeks of holiday stretching out in front of me. I’ll have all day to play out.’

  ‘Don’t rub it in.’ Julie reached for her mug of extremely dark black coffee while Adam sipped at a green tea and scraped hummus thinly onto wholegrain bread.

  ‘How can you eat chick peas for breakfast?’ She shuddered and bit into thick white toast, which Adam had, unusually, smothered in butter and a thick layer of strawberry jam for her. ‘What are you planning to do today?’

  Adam stretched and leaned back on his elbows, making the tray slant on the covers. ‘I thought I might take myself off to Brecon after school and have a look at the Monks’ Trod in the library for you.’

  ‘So, you’re not training yourself into oblivion for a change then?’

  ‘I’ll go on the bike.’

  ‘But it’s miles to Brecon.’

  ‘It’s not that far. I’ll just nip over the Epynt.’

  Julie sipped her coffee. ‘You, Adam Kite, are absolutely barking mad.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t have me any other way.’

  *

  Julie pushed through the swing doors and breathed in the hospital smell. Why did she like it so much? It made Swift heave, she knew that, aware as he was of the horrors he’d seen down this corridor over the years. Maybe it was because she enjoyed that sense of cleanliness, of things being black and white, alive or dead, the hard facts provided by the victim’s body and a skilled pathologist. She looked at her watch. 7.50am. She knocked on Kay Greenhalgh’s door and was answered by a muffled hang on a moment.

  The door opened and Dr Greenhalgh swept out past Julie into the corridor, her short white wellingtons squeaking gently on the polished lino.

  ‘Nice to see you’re an early riser too, Sergeant.’ She turned sharp left without slowing her stride and backed through double doors, gesturing to another door on her left. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute, make yourself at home.’

  Julie climbed the four steps up to the gallery and took a seat behind the full-length window. Beneath her were two stainless steel tables and banks of surgical instruments, buckets and weighing equipment, all beneath operating theatre-strength lighting. From the right hand side of this stage, a trolley appeared, pushed by a gowned and masked assistant. The body of the victim made only the slightest of contours in the white sheet. Only the peak of his feet and the rounded bump of his head gave away the fact that this had, very recently, been a person.

  From the door on the left
hand side, Kay Greenhalgh emerged, snapping on surgical gloves. She reached for the overhead handle, repositioned the brilliant light, flicked on her tape recorder and asked her assistant to remove the sheet. Carefully, she cut away the checked shirt, which was crusty from its contact with the peaty water. Even from a distance, Julie could see Kay’s eyebrows raise, pushing up the unflattering blue headgear further into her hairline. ‘Well, there’s a turn up.’ She glanced up to where Julie was sitting with her face as near to the glass as it could be. ‘I must book an appointment with a good optician,’ Kay said. Then, into the recorder, ‘The body is that of an extremely emaciated female of perhaps eighteen to twenty-five years.’

  *