‘Let’s invite him, then! As long as he can keep a secret. We don’t want it to get around that we’re poking our noses in.’
‘He can keep a secret all right. Even his wife doesn’t know of his addiction to crime fiction, or so he thinks. She’s quite a battle-axe . . . she’d never allow him to come yomping through the woods with us on a Saturday evening.’
‘Oh, well, it was just a thought. Shall we go?’
Melissa put on old shoes and an anorak and they set off down the well-trodden path. There was no sign of Iris; she was probably eating her supper. Thoughts of food reminded Melissa that she had existed all day on tea, fruit and sandwiches. Mentally, she ran through the contents of her freezer and decided she could easily rustle up a meal for two when they got back. If Bruce hadn’t already eaten, of course. If he had, he could sit and watch while she had hers, or go home.
They trudged along in single file until they reached Daniel’s hut. Here the path divided, one track swinging off to the right and climbing into the woods behind the church.
‘It looks as if we go straight on,’ said Melissa. The damp grass ahead had been trampled and muddy patches churned up by scores of feet. They walked on in silence. A short distance ahead the trees, which had so far been confined to the upper slopes of the valley, suddenly closed in on them. A wide track, waterlogged in places and deeply rutted, ran down the hill from the right, crossed their path and plunged into dense woodland a few yards further on. A mist of bluebells drifted among the undergrowth; birds darted to and fro.
‘Lovely spot,’ commented Bruce. ‘Now, which way do we go?’
‘Left, I think.’
They picked their way along the edge of the track, trying to avoid the worst of the mud. There was a mossy dampness in the air and the sound of their voices echoed softly among the trees.
‘Who owns the land round here?’ asked Bruce.
‘There’s an outfit called Benbury Estates that owns thousands of acres and several farms. I believe these woods are part of Rookery Farm. I’m told that one of their sidelines is raising pheasants and letting out their land to shooting parties in the season.’
As she spoke, they came to a junction with a second track.
‘We must be nearly there.’ Melissa pointed to where the ground was criss-crossed with heavy tyre-marks. ‘Those were made by a tractor but it looks as if a four-wheeler was parked here, probably a police Land Rover.’
Bruce’s mouth crimped and he gave a nod of approval. ‘Nathan Latimer, ace detective, swings into action!’
‘Shut up!’ She gave his arm a thump. They stood still for a moment, following with their eyes the line of trampled undergrowth running in among the trees. The sky had become overcast and the light filtering through the leaves was a cheerless grey. Bruce put on his jacket against the chilly breeze and Melissa huddled into her anorak. Then she saw it.
‘There!’ she whispered, pointing to where a fallen tree lay in a tangle of brambles. The mighty root system reared and yawned before them like the mouth of a cavern. All around were signs of massive disturbance; the police search had been thorough. Melissa moved forward but Bruce put a hand on her arm.
‘There’s someone there — look!’ he whispered, pointing at a man in dark clothes near the uprooted tree. He was hatless, standing with his head bent and his hands clasped in front of him.
‘It’s the Rector!’ said Melissa in surprise. ‘Whatever is he doing?’
‘Saying a prayer for the soul of the departed, by the looks of it,’ murmured Bruce. ‘A nice thought.’
Melissa gave him a keen glance, suspecting him of facetiousness, but he appeared genuinely moved.
‘The poor man’s been dreadfully upset by all this,’ she said. ‘Almost as shocked as if he’d found the body himself.’
‘It’s a nasty thing to happen in one’s back yard,’ Bruce murmured reflectively.
Melissa nodded. ‘He loves to walk in these woods. This affair will haunt him every time he comes this way.’
They had been speaking in low voices and the man ahead gave no sign of having heard. For a moment or two they hesitated. Overhead, the trees rustled and birds fluttered and chirped among the branches. The call of a cuckoo sounded, foolish and faintly irreverent. Then Mr Calloway looked up and saw the two watchers.
He appeared startled for a moment, then picked his way towards them. In the subdued light his face had a sickly pallor and the corners of his mouth were turned down as if under the weight of the sagging cheeks. He looked utterly miserable.
‘Ah, Mrs Craig,’ he said in a husky voice. ‘A dreadful business, quite dreadful!’
‘Terrible!’ agreed Melissa. ‘This is Mr Ingram,’ she added in response to an enquiring glance. ‘Our Rector, Mr Calloway.’
The men shook hands.
‘I think we’ve met before, haven’t we, sir?’ said Bruce.
The Rector looked at him with mournful eyes, shaking his head. ‘Not that I remember but I’m a little confused at the moment. The shock, you know. That poor creature!’ he went on, half-turning towards the spot where earth and decaying leaves lay in heaps. ‘Lying there all that time, all alone!’
‘At least she’ll have a decent burial once the autopsy is over,’ said Bruce. He spoke diffidently, as if it was presumption on his part to offer comfort to one whose job it was to minister to others. His words seemed to have the opposite effect for the Rector’s distress deepened visibly.
‘So it was a woman? Oh dear, oh dear!’ For some reason this seemed to make matters so much worse. ‘Have they . . . do they know who it . . . she . . . was?’
‘Not so far as I know,’ said Bruce. ‘But according to this evening’s Gazette, it was definitely a woman’s body.’
‘Poor soul!’ The Rector took out a handkerchief and wiped his nose. The wind began to blow more strongly, tossing aside the treetops and revealing hurrying masses of dark cloud.
‘Better not hang around, sir, it’s going to chuck it down in a minute,’ said Bruce.
The Rector gave a faint smile as if the younger man’s deference pleased him. ‘That’s all right, my boy. Don’t worry about me.’
After a moment’s hesitation, Bruce tucked a hand under Melissa’s arm and led her back the way they had come.
Eleven
The wind was against them as they hurried back, casting anxious glances at the sky. The rain began just as they were scrambling over the stile and a few seconds after they got indoors it was falling in sheets.
‘What about that drink you offered me?’ said Bruce, helping Melissa off with her jacket.
She led the way into the kitchen and showed him where the bottles were kept. ‘Help yourself. There’s ice and lemon in the fridge. I’m going to get some food, I’m absolutely ravenous. Have you eaten this evening?’
‘Yes, but I can always find room for more. My mother says I’m a bottomless pit!’
‘You live at home?’
‘No, I share a house in Barnwood with a couple of friends. My parents live in Upton so I see them quite often. What shall I pour for you?’
‘Gin and tonic, please.’ She was rummaging in the freezer. ‘Do you fancy spaghetti bolognese?’
‘Try me!’ He poured the drinks, passed one to her and perched on a stool while she put the sauce to thaw in the microwave and boiled water for the spaghetti. ‘I see you’re into wholewheat pasta!’ he said with evident approval.
‘That’s Iris’s influence.’
‘Your neighbour, the one who found Babs’s body?’
Melissa nodded, pushing spaghetti into the saucepan and eyeing him through the steam. ‘You’re still sticking to your theory that it is Babs?’
He nodded emphatically over the rim of his glass.
‘But why take her body to Benbury Woods? It’s a long way from her usual haunts, from what you’ve told me.’
‘As a crime novelist, surely you’ll agree that dumping a body miles from the scene of the crime is par for the course now
adays. Confuses the fuzz, keeps the reader guessing, et cetera et cetera. Isn’t it the same in real life?’
‘True. Perhaps the killer is familiar with the area and knew of that particular spot, knew that there was that really deep hollow where it was unlikely that anyone would find the body if it was properly covered up.’
‘Familiar with the area, or actually living nearby. By the way, have you got an Ordnance map?’
‘I’ve got a footpath map, if that’s any good.’
‘Even better.’
She fetched it from the sitting-room. ‘I haven’t put it to much use yet, I’m afraid.’
Bruce spread the map on the kitchen table and Melissa pointed with the handle of her wooden spoon. ‘Here are our cottages, here’s the path leading to the church past Daniel’s hut, and here . . .’ the spoon traced a hesitant line towards a patch of green speckled with minuscule toytown trees ‘. . . here is where we met that muddy track. We went this way.’
Bruce jabbed at the map with a forefinger. ‘That’s where the body was found, just by this junction with the second track. It must have been taken there in some sort of vehicle. Let’s see where the tracks lead.’ There was a brief silence while a finger moved in one direction and a wooden spoon-handle in the other. They converged on Rookery Farm. Neither track gave access to a public road, but a third led from the farm to a lane leading into Lower Benbury.
‘Aha!’ said Bruce. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘It explains one thing,’ said Melissa. ‘I wondered why there were no police vehicles outside this place today, but of course they must have been given permission to use the private roads and tracks. The hoi polloi had to park here and make their way to the scene of the crime on foot.’
Bruce pretended to take offence. ‘“Hoi polloi” is no way to refer to the honourable members of the Fourth Estate!’
Melissa pulled a face at him and went to test the spaghetti.
‘It also explains how easy it would have been to transport the body to where it was found,’ he went on. ‘Tractor or Land Rover as far as this junction and then it’s only a matter of a few yards to the burial spot. And no one would have taken any notice of the tyre-marks because vehicles would be passing that way all the time on estate business.’
‘But wouldn’t there be a risk that the people at the farm would spot them?’
‘Suppose it was the people at the farm? How much do you know about these Benbury Estates people?’
‘Not much. Remember, I’ve only lived here a couple of weeks. I believe the owners live in a big house called Benbury Park. Iris has been my main source of information so far and I gather from her that they keep their distance from the village folk. I did meet someone from Rookery Farm a few days ago,’ she added, remembering her unnerving encounter with Dick Woodman. ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve just killed him off!’ She made a menacing pass with her wooden spoon.
‘Another case for Nathan Latimer?’ Bruce grinned, then grew serious again. ‘Who was this chap?’
‘A young man, quite pleasant-looking once I’d got over the shock.’ She gave a brief account of the episode in Daniel’s hut.
Bruce listened with close attention. ‘Would you say he was of the landed gentry class?’
‘He spoke with a local accent . . . he could have been the farm owner, or possibly the manager.’
‘Barbour jacket and green wellies with straps?’
Melissa thought for a moment. ‘He was wearing a waxie, yes, but it was a working garment, not the kind the yuppies go for. And heavy boots, the sort you’d wear round a farm. He had a dog with him. Now I come to think of it, he’d probably been checking the sheep. The wholesome, outdoor type — I can’t somehow picture him consorting with the likes of Babs Carter.’
‘We can’t eliminate anyone at this stage. Suppose he’d been sneaking off to The Usual Place on a Friday night and going back to her flat? Suppose she found out he was married and started blackmailing him? Suppose . . .’
‘He spends Friday evenings at the Woolpack playing skittles along with practically the whole village,’ Melissa pointed out. ‘And he didn’t strike me as being a very lucrative prospect for a blackmailer. I think we can safely eliminate him from our list of suspects.’
Bruce shook his head reproachfully. ‘I’m surprised at you,’ he said. ‘I thought it was often the least likely suspect who turns out to be the villain.’
‘In detective novels, yes,’ agreed Melissa. ‘Not so often in real life.’ She had been studying the map as she spoke. ‘Look, there’s another track branching off the one where the body was found.’
Bruce looked over her shoulder as she traced it. It led directly to Benbury Park. ‘Hmm . . .’ he murmured. ‘I wonder . . .’
Melissa began serving the spaghetti. ‘I can’t think any more until I’ve eaten,’ she said. ‘There’s a bottle of Chianti in the cupboard and you’ll find a corkscrew in that drawer.’
They ate and drank for a time in silence before Melissa asked, ‘So what’s this devious plan you have up your sleeve?’
Bruce looked pained. ‘Devious? Me?’
‘You as good as admitted on the phone that you were hatching some scheme and unless I’m mistaken, you’ve got a part lined up for me, so let’s have it!’
Bruce laid down his fork and picked up his glass. His eyes twinkled with mischief.
‘I thought,’ he said, after swallowing a mouthful of wine, ‘you might like to have a facial and get your hair done. Oh, and maybe a manicure and a body massage. And then you could go and sign on at the Up Front Model Agency!’
A forkful of spaghetti fell on to Melissa’s plate.
‘You’ve got a nerve!’ she spluttered. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘Second career!’ Bruce grinned, then grew serious. ‘Let me explain. I’ve been racking my brains as to a possible motive for killing Babs. There’s the straightforward sex angle — she picks up a pervert or some other nasty character by mistake — but from what I know so far it doesn’t seem very likely. The police spoke to one or two of the girls at the club and they said she had a few regular favourites among the audience at the strip shows and if anyone she didn’t fancy made a pass at her they soon got put down.’
‘You mean she did it for love as well as the money?’
‘More or less.’
‘Did the police interview any of her regulars?’
‘Not that I know of. It wasn’t a full-scale enquiry, remember . . . no crime had been reported and such evidence as there was suggested her disappearance was voluntary.’
‘Which you don’t accept?’
‘Right.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘I’ve already mentioned blackmail. Suppose she got to know her regulars well enough to be able to threaten to tell their wives?’
‘Suppose she did? I can’t see how it would help for me to get my picture in an advertisement for frozen food.’
‘I’m coming to that . . . but I’m sure they’d find something more glamorous than fish fingers for you to promote.’
‘You’re too kind.’
‘Not at all. I can see you looking sultry and seductive over a bottle of exotic liqueur at the very least . . . or wallowing in a bubble bath!’
‘Do stop playing the fool and get to the point.’
‘Right. My third possibility is altogether more serious. Suppose Babs had somehow stumbled on some kind of racket, either at the agency or at the beauty salon?’
‘What beauty salon?’
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? She had a flat — or rather, a bedsitter — over a beauty salon in Gloucester.’
‘No, you didn’t but . . . what sort of a racket are you thinking of?’
‘One of my contacts was telling me a couple of days ago that the Drugs Squad are convinced there’s a big organisation somewhere in the county, bringing in everything from hash to heroin. Now and again they pick up small fry but so far the big boys have kept their tracks covered. The
problem’s particularly bad in the city.’
‘It’s a big problem everywhere,’ Melissa agreed thoughtfully, remembering one of Simon’s friends at Oxford, a brilliant scholar who had died of an accidental overdose. Any contribution, however small, towards controlling the menace would be worthwhile.
‘Just suppose, for example,’ Bruce went on, ‘that either the agency or the beauty salon was being used as a centre for drug distribution — both, even — and that Babs somehow tumbled to it. Suppose she’d threatened to blow the whistle or demanded a cut . . . and someone decided she was too dangerous to stay alive . . . does that sound feasible?’ He scanned her face with what she had come to think of as his eager terrier expression.
‘It’s feasible, of course, but . . .’
‘So will you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Suss out the salon and . . .’
‘Now, wait a minute.’ It suddenly dawned on Melissa that his earlier suggestion, which she had dismissed as a flippant irrelevance, had been made in earnest. ‘Do you seriously expect me to go snooping round some scruffy little back-street hairdresser and then make a fool of myself trying to con a blase young photographer into using me as a model? I’ve got better things to do with my time.’
‘Then you won’t help?’
Melissa got up and began clearing away the dishes. ‘You haven’t given me one concrete reason for believing that anything sinister is going on. All you can offer is hunches.’ She came to her decision. ‘No, nothing doing.’
Bruce put down his glass and stood up. ‘Forgive me for having wasted your time. Just forget the whole thing. Thank you for a delicious supper,’ he added stiffly. He looked snubbed, young and vulnerable.
‘I didn’t mean to sound ratty,’ she said more gently. ‘Things have been quite fraught lately. I came down here hoping for a quiet life where I can work in peace and the minute I arrive all hell’s let loose — weird phone calls, bodies being dug up, reporters and police swarming all over the place . . . and now you’re trying to get me to join in a wild-goose chase after a drugs gang. It’s all a bit much!’
Murder at Hawthorn Cottage: An absolutely gripping cozy mystery (A Melissa Craig Mystery Book 1) Page 10