Fatal Decision

by Ted Tayler

  Three weeks further on and temperatures were on the increase. The longer days provided the trigger to new growth and as long as Gus offered his early sowings protection the majority would survive. This milder, unsettled spell was forecast to carry through to into April.

  Gus had applied for an allotment soon after moving into the village. Retirement was bound to deliver spare time. He and Tess could only take so many holidays outside of term time at the college and visits to National Trust properties on a weekend didn’t come cheap. They needed to be rationed.

  Events changed that within six months. Although immediately after Tess’s death Gus struggled to motivate himself, he found the gardening therapeutic. The solace that the patch of land provided became crucial in his grieving process.

  Yesterday, he had put the finishing touches to his winter pruning and started his digging. There was always something. He wondered again what Kenneth Truelove might want. Gus didn’t want it to stop him from getting in his early potatoes.

  There was nothing for it. He picked up the phone and dialled.

  A bored sounding woman answered.

  “Can I speak to the ACC, please?” asked Gus, “I’m returning his call. Ex-Detective Inspector Freeman.”

  She asked him to hold, then treated him to a quick burst of ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ by The Beach Boys while he waited. Gus held the phone at arms’ length.

  “Truelove here. Good morning, Freeman.”

  “The cuts haven’t bitten too deep, I see. You’ve still got a secretary.”

  “Vera is a Personal Assistant,” replied the ACC, “and several of us share her services.”

  “Things have changed since I left.”

  “Clearly you haven’t, Freeman. You understood exactly what I meant.”

  “Might I also suggest a change of background music? Something by The Police would be more appropriate. After all, Brian Wilson allegedly took an incredible variety of drugs in the Sixties. Is that the right message?”

  “I’m a busy man, Freeman. I called because I have a matter to discuss with you, face to face. How are you fixed tomorrow afternoon? Let’s say, two o’clock here at HQ on London Road.”

  “Two o’clock? Do I really need to drive there with the traffic snarl-ups that road suffers? OK, but I might be late. It depends on how I get on with my Ulster Classics.”

  That comment flummoxed the ACC.

  “I’m sure that means something to you, Freeman. Get here as soon as you can. I can hardly discipline you. Look, I have a serious proposal to put to you. So, please try to leave the levity in the countryside when you travel in tomorrow.”

  “Message received,” said Gus.

  He ended the call. Surely, his old boss recognised levity as a defence mechanism. Kenneth Truelove had been a proper copper before achieving a high rank. Unlike many parachuted into leading management positions with lots of letters after their name but nothing between the ears.

  Forty years of hard graft in such places as the one he was attending tomorrow had worn him down. Retirement should have been the time to unwind and relax with family and friends.

  Circumstances dictated he enjoyed neither. A few fellow gardeners he bumped into at the allotments. The window cleaner. Although eight visits a year of twenty minutes maximum hardly constituted a friendship. Still, the lad was never short of a word.

  Gus lingered in the hallway and tried to remember where he’d left his gardening shoes. He had already checked the usual places without luck. There was the danger that this time alone had messed with his head. He refused to consider the ‘D’ word. He banned it from his vocabulary.

  Nevertheless, he opened the fridge door and risked a look. See, nothing to worry over, he chided himself. If only Tess was still here. She used to tell him not to leave them where he dropped them inside the porch. Gus kicked them off before walking indoors to avoid leaving dirty marks on the hall carpet. He thought he was being helpful.

  He opened the front door. Mystery solved.

  Ten minutes later he opened his garden shed to fetch his tools. The allotments stood on a stretch of land next to the Parish Cemetery. Other allotment holders around him were hard at work on their plots. He acknowledged a wave from Bert Penman, a retired butcher as he straightened himself up slowly from tending to his strawberries. A back-breaking job, clearing off old leaves and cleaning the ground between the plants before applying a top-dressing of general fertiliser. Hard enough for a man Gus’s age, but much harder for old Bert. He was eighty-five if he was a day.

  Frank North sidled across from next door. A weasel of a man who looked as if a gust of wind would blow him over. He was in his early seventies and had worked for nearly every farmer in the district at one time or another before retiring last year.

  “I’m lighting a bonfire in half an hour. Would that inconvenience you?”

  “That’s fine, Frank. Thanks for asking.”

  “I’ve seen you sitting here of an evening, reading or contemplating life. Do you ever spot anything untoward on the hillside over yonder?”

  Frank knew Gus was a former policeman. He didn’t engage in conversation much. Gus got the impression Frank thought he’d still have his nose into everything and retirement never altered how a copper spent his time. Gus shaded his eyes from the sun and stared at the hill in the distance.

  “What am I looking at, Frank? I can’t say anything odd has ever struck me.”

  “I know the area better than you, I bet,” said Frank. He sat on an upturned wooden crate and began rolling a cigarette. This would obviously mean a further delay in the Ulster Classics schedule.

  Frank was ready to continue. Although what satisfaction he got from the spindly roll-up he now took a drag from Gus couldn’t fathom.

  “Can you see the clump of trees on the hill? Just to the right of the church tower ahead of us?”

  Gus nodded. Frank coughed for several seconds and then continued.

  “Behind those trees is a lane that runs along the backs of the cottages on the hillside.”

  “I didn’t even realise there were any cottages there,” said Gus. “They’re hidden from view by those trees.”

  “They built Cambrai Terrace after the Great War,” Frank continued, “sixteen cottages owned by the council. They got sold off from 1981 onwards thanks to Thatcher’s government. They’re privately owned now and because there was no gas that far out of the village most of them have oil-fired central heating or night-storage radiators. Bloody expensive to run. If you could see the roofs on some of them, they’ve added solar panels to reduce the costs.”

  Gus let him carry on. He knew why Frank could supply intimate details of these places. In the distant past, he’d been known to do a spot of breaking and entering. Hence the reason for so many changes of employer. Frank wasn’t fussy who he stole from, or when and had suffered frequent short terms of imprisonment when he got caught. Which he always did. He wasn’t the brightest spark.

  “So, what makes you think there’s something untoward happening up there, Frank?” he asked.

  Frank held up a hand. Gus needed to wait while he coughed again and rolled a fresh cigarette.

  “Follow the line across the hillside from that clump of trees until you reach the willows.”

  Gus followed the direction Frank pointed.

  “Willow trees, are they? Difficult to tell from this distance.”

  “They’re osier willows,” explained Frank, “the sort you want if you’re weaving things like baskets, or hurdles. They grow like buggery. Sixteen feet in a year. If you don’t harvest them, they end up half as tall again.”

  “Similar to a leylandii, but useful,” suggested Gus.

  Frank grinned.

  “When you’re sitting here of an evening, keep an eye on those willows and tell me what you make of what you see.”

  With that, he got up, stubbed the second thin cigarette out with a boot heel and returned to his gardening.

  Gus didn’t know what to make of it.
Maybe he would drive up there one day. Frank wasn’t going to let him into the secret this afternoon.

  True to his word, Frank gathered the old leaves and twigs from trees overhanging his plot, plus the results of pruning his fruit trees. The bonfire took a while to take hold. The tinder-dry kindling he fetched from inside his shed struggled to overcome the dampness of the vegetation. There were very few flames, but an awful lot of smoke.

  Gus decided not to hang around to learn which side won out. He could return earlier tomorrow morning to give himself half a chance of getting two rows of early potatoes into the ground. Provided the meeting with the ACC didn’t take too long he could get back to wrap straw around his plants to protect them in case of frost.

  A forecast was just that. He’d been caught out before. The pretty, young TV weather girl promised one thing and Mother Nature delivered something else entirely. Bert Penman had given him a piece of advice the first Spring he’d worked here.

  “Ignore the calendar. In this country, it’s best to prepare for the likelihood that we’ll get all four seasons in one day. That way you won’t go far wrong.”

  Wednesday, 28th March 2018

  Dawn had brought the morning Bert Penman predicted. A ground frost greeted Gus Freeman as he made his way through the village to the allotments. An earlier radio bulletin suggested this mild spell would bring changeable conditions to the West.

  Gus smiled to himself. Just a few words away from the forecast they had issued last evening, and they covered themselves from any admonishment. It was a wonder more weather forecasters didn’t move into politics. They could magic up an excuse for any occasion.

  By lunchtime his chores were complete. The Ulster Classics had been sown and wrapped up warm on the off-chance there was an early nip in the air in the coming days.

  He had plenty of time to prepare his home-made soup from his own vegetables before driving into town. He diced the carrots, parsnip and swede, and added the vegetable stock. While the machine clunked and whizzed in the background, he cut a healthy-sized wedge from his loaf of wholemeal bread and dropped it into the toaster as the timer reached three minutes.

  Twenty-five minutes from start to finish, he thought, as he savoured the nourishing snack. Tess would be proud of me. I’ll freeze the rest of that batch later and the four servings will be ideal to speed up my lunchtime meals when I’m busier on the allotment next month.

  Cooking was a skill he’d developed over the past three years. As a beat copper and as a detective, meals had been basic. At home, they were often interrupted by an urgent call from the station. Out on the job, they were restricted to fast food eaten on the run. Not good for the digestion, or the waistline.

  All that stopped when he retired. Tess had been determined they both adopted a healthier diet. The premature deaths of their parents had been due to lifestyle choices. Tess admitted soon after they started dating that she smoked the odd cigarette in her teens but didn’t continue because she didn’t enjoy the experience. Gus had never touched the stuff. Money was tight enough as a teenager without chucking it away.

  The allotment was the first step on the search for The Good Life. They dreamed of growing as many of their own vegetables and soft fruits as they could. Now he was alone Gus didn’t want to change that plan. He owed it to Tess’s memory to follow through what she had started.

  Gus checked his watch. He should get to this mysterious appointment with Kenneth Truelove on time despite his reservations.

  He drove away from the bungalow and turned onto High Street. The high hedges on either side of the narrow road screened the red-brick houses with their thatched roofs from the sparse village traffic. There was a mix of social housing and higher-end detached properties on either side of the local pub on the left-hand side. As he drove past the more affluent end of the village and the gaps between dwellings increased, he admired the mature trees and gardens that graced the roadside. It was a pleasant place to live,

  He turned onto the A342 and headed towards Devizes. A gaggle of ladies who lunch waddled out of the Fox and Hounds on his right. Gus hoped they had a designated driver. The place had a good reputation for food though, so he’d heard. If he found someone to dine with, he might give it a visit.

  Gus negotiated the multiple series of roundabouts that town planners thought made traffic flow easier and made his way up the A361 towards his destination. He passed the Crammer on his right-hand side. The name of the famous pond came from the German word for a tradesman. German merchants used to visit the town centuries ago and set up their stalls on the small green next to the pond. The Crammer was also the supposed site of the Moonraker legend, in which canny Wiltshire smugglers duped the excisemen by hiding their kegs of brandy in the pond and pretended to be raking for the great, big cheese.

  The excisemen knew it was the reflection of the moon but didn’t check what lay beneath the surface. Those excisemen were responsible for Wiltshire folk’s reputation since those times.

  That they were strong in the arm and thick in the head.

  The Wiltshire Police Headquarters loomed on his left. An imposing structure built in the early Sixties. Gus had visited on several occasions. The visitor’s car park was well signposted, and he found several empty spaces. He settled his ten-year-old Ford Focus between a BMW and a Peugeot. They carried a fifteen and a seventeen plate, respectively, but his trusty four-door saloon didn’t look too shabby in comparison.

  Gus wasn’t a petrol head. He only needed a car to get him from home to the shops and back each week. If he did three thousand miles a year that was a miracle. He used it for an occasional trip to the allotment if any heavy items needed to be transported. He doubted the Peugeot ever carried twenty-five-kilo bags of compost or a bale of straw.

  When he reached Reception, he realised several pairs of eyes were studying him. Should he have changed his clothes? Bugger. He was so used to donning things in which he felt comfortable.

  His check shirt, sweater and muddied trousers looked okay on the village allotment but obviously, they were frowned upon here. He almost kicked off his shoes to avoid dirtying the pristine flooring but wasn’t sure whether he had holes in his socks or not.

  The officer on duty stepped forward. Gus waited for him to speak but the younger man merely raised an eyebrow. Such a tiny change of facial expression, yet it conveyed so much.

  Gus imagined it meant; are you sure you’re meant to be here, Sir? How may I assist you in reaching your intended destination?

  “Ex-Detective Inspector Freeman to see ACC Truelove.”

  With the silence broken the officer’s face went through various changes. It reminded Gus of the old wrappers from a Fry’s Five Boys Chocolate Bar. Not the same series of emotions gained from the popular confection but certainly there was shock, disbelief, alarm and a dawning realisation that an apology would be welcomed.

  “Of course, Sir. We were expecting you. Could you sign in, please and here’s your Visitor’s pass. The ACC’s Personal Assistant will come to escort you to his office. Please take a seat.”

  Gus did as he was told. At two minutes to two o’clock, a lady descended the stairs. Vera’s appearance a polar opposite to what Gus imagined belonged to the fed-up voice he heard on the phone. She was in her early fifties. Tall, slim and with long black hair that shrouded her face as she carefully made her way to Reception.

  Once that had been achieved on four-inch high heels she looked towards him. Gus quickly closed his mouth. Her eyes were green and bright. Her black skirt was not short, but it did more than enough to highlight her great legs. His initial thought had been slim, but the crisp, white blouse was tailored and hugged her curves. Vera was a stunner. What a crafty old dog the ACC turned out to be. No wonder several of the top brass had dibs on accessing Vera’s shared services.

  “If you would follow me, Mr Freeman,” she said, showing no signs of noticing Gus had been drooling. Vera waited on the first step for him to join her. They were to walk up together, side by
side. Gus cursed under his breath. Of course, she noticed. How long was his chin on the floor, he wondered?

  Vera ushered him into the ACC’s office. His old boss stood by the window studying the front car park.

  “Tea or coffee, Sir?” she asked.

  “Tea for me, Vera,” said the ACC, “that okay for you, Freeman?”

  “Anything as long as it’s hot and strong.”

  Vera closed the door behind her. Gus noticed the briefest of smiles on her lips. Full lips, not too heavily made-up…

  “You’ve still kept the Ford Focus on the road then, Gus? Not swapped it in for a Land Rover yet. I thought that was more your farming community types mode of transport.”

  “Sorry. No, I’m happy with my little runabout. There’s been no reason to swap her.”

  “Nasty business on your old patch, Freeman? Never thought we’d be dealing with nerve agents. Not in sleepy Salisbury.”

  “A sign of the times I’m afraid, Sir; but that isn’t why you brought me here I imagine?”

  Truelove handed Gus two folders. One thin and one thick.

  “Everything you need on salaries, forms to sign, official ID and the like are inside, plus the first thing we want you to investigate.”

  “You appear to have missed out one important step, sir,” said Freeman. “I have no idea what you expect me to be considering in these files.”

  Gus flicked disinterestedly through the thinner file while the ACC stood and walked back to the window. He carried on with his prepared speech without answering.

  “You would be assigned to Superintendent Mercer’s team.”

  “Geoff Mercer? A Superintendent. How on earth did he ever reach such dizzy heights?”

  “He’s a very competent officer,” replied Truelove, “who does exactly what’s expected of him in delivering twenty-first century policing.”

  “Heaven knows why I’m here, then,” Freeman snorted. “When are you going to tell me what the heck this is about?”