Bitter Pastoral_A DCI Caleb Cade Crime Thriller of rural Ancaster County.

by John R Goddard

  “Who was actually driving as you came out of the drive?”

  His answer dumbfounds. He does not know. It was very dark. Castle was marooned reluctantly in the back seat, the women stood outside and argued about who would drive first. The rules do not say he has to be in the front.

  ‘We drive chauffeur Mark, yes, big joke?’ they said. He did not, could not see who actually got in which front seat and the darkened partition between was two thirds up to the roof so he could certainly not see what went on and heard nothing save a Chinese oath as the car stopped.

  Eyes closed, he recalls the moments. Whoever was driving, she initially jerks the vehicle as she stops and starts, perhaps not used to the automatic gears, the sensitive brakes and fast response accelerator. The Bentley had slowed as it moved to turn into the road at the end of the Albion House drive with no traffic either way in the darkness. She had turned left but then instinctively from normal habit positioned the car on the right-hand side of the road as they do in China.

  As Castle leant forward to tap and correct her, somehow the black shape of another car was suddenly there, coming fast head on at them with its lights appearing from nowhere on full beam.

  “One minute, darkness, the next a car almost upon us with its spots on high,” Castle says, shaking his head, still bewildered. “The locals in that house were all a bit weird if you ask me and this seemed like a ghost car.”

  Yet another booming noise of an aircraft eating up the space before a scrunch of wheels on tarmac. His description is precisely military once more. The ghost car turned out to be a green BMW convertible, driving on the left, which immediately veered to its right away from the Bentley. The Bentley went to its right, braked hard, spun a few yards on the ice, accelerated, hit the grass kerb directly ahead hard, mounted it, stopped.

  “Thankfully. We were not going that fast. Even then I thought we were going into the ditch, into a hedge, or field, before she controlled it, calmly put it in neutral but with the engine still revving as she had her foot still on the accelerator.”

  When he leant forward he could not see who was driving, nor who was the passenger. He was already scrambling out when the two women had answered that they were unharmed.

  Castle describes the shock at what might have happened and the chaos for a few moments. He got out of the back door on the passenger’s side and went behind the Bentley to check the BMW driver was fine. The two Chinese women appeared behind him a few moments later. He did not see who got out of the driver’s seat, did not ask, nor did they tell him.

  The Chinese women were chattering in their own language but too fast for him to understand. The young man from the BMW was shouting that they were driving on the wrong side of the road. The young woman shouted back that he had no lights on and ‘Rocco is idiot.’

  Castle and the young man had calmed things down with a ruse: suggesting they look at their cars and around the area. Using torches the two men found one dead fox in the middle of the road.

  “The BMW had scratches and an impact bump on the right front wing and the young guy said he had seen the fox but could not swerve in time. The Bentley hardly feels a thing on impact, it is so big and strong, computer records any major blow and it had noted nothing when I looked.”

  I ask if his car had any marks on it at all.

  He chooses his words carefully, eyes high above me either vividly remembering the events or not wanting his eyes to give him away in any subterfuge, “I do not think so. We had accumulated quite a few marks and scratches in our few days in your county – narrow lanes with bushes scratching both front wings, caught a gate post with the right wing one day – but when I looked quickly that night, I could not see anything new.”

  “So why search and what for?”

  His face is surprised, “You knew we searched, how …”

  “And did you see a dead woman in the road or in a ditch before or after, is that what you were looking for?” I probe. “Best tell me now Mark.”

  “No,” Castle is firm, gaze direct. “We searched up and down the road for the second fox – young guy said they often roam in pairs. Headlights on, using the car’s torches too.”

  He is adamant.

  “The women insisted on looking, foxes are venerated in China, ‘mystical spirits with magical powers.’ You do not upset them.”

  Castle, accompanied by the older Chinese woman, looked in the ditches up both road sides to the left of the Albion gate, the young guy did the same to the right with the younger Chinese.

  “I never thought … we hit anyone …. was in the back, view blocked. But am sure the women did not deliberately hit anyone or see the woman themselves if we did hit her. They showed no upset or emotion at all. Ask them.”

  I say we will as he goes on, “They were so calm, playful almost on the journey back down to London, especially keen on someone called Valentine they had finally met at the party, gave me a grand tip, cannot spend rest of it now, blood money.”

  All noise is suspended inside and outside the house then as he whispers, “Surely someone else could have hit ….?”

  I shake my head as I savage his wish, ‘”Killed her? No Mark. Definitely your car.”

  **Once more we sit in prolonged silence. I know he just wants to be with his little girl and boy. He can. I just want to be with my daughter. I cannot.

  The warm aroma of what is no doubt his favourite dinner of roast chicken and fruit pie floats through to us as I hear the children go upstairs with their mother for their bath, hear the little girl cry out, “Want my Daddy now, now Mum? Make that horrid man go way.”

  Mark stands, hopeful that it is over, grateful as I say, “Tell the truth again in your statement tomorrow Mark and all will be well.”

  He sees me to the door, shakes hands as I ask, “I take it you had a visit in France, possibly from a large American gentleman called Adams, who offered you much to take the blame – money, job abroad or here for life, said they would provide a brilliant lawyer if it came to court, possibly hinted at your losing your job and life as you know it if you did not comply?”

  He is wary again now, even as his daughter, clad only in a towel around her waist comes to the top of the stairs and cries for him.

  He shakes his head, “Man came, did say all that, French guy, no name, said he was from the bank though, but not Mr Adams, he interviewed me for security before I was cleared to drive the two women. Definitely not him.”

  “Put that in your statement too.”

  He shuffles nervously, his words cut through his daughter crying for him once more from above, “These people, can, will, ruin me.”

  I am seriously firm, “No, I will see you keep your job and are fine. Or find you another better one. Ever thought of the police, rural England?”

  The door closes, both children crying joyfully now, “Daddy, Daddy” as I hear him bound up the stairs. I can only imagine the happy family scene as I sit outside in my car and email notes to the ACC of my day with the Professors, the Foreign Office, the Secret Intelligence Service and an ordinary family in Slough.

  Sunday

  67

  The spectral figure trudges weary across my snow shrouded meadow; an ancient soldier home from the wars. He is still for minutes at a time, head cocked this way and that to peer and soak up the smallest sound, before stepping warily on.

  Heavy snow swirls around the tight circle of ancient oak, beech, willow and maple trees where Jerry and I lurk silent, surrounded and unmoving within the small round sunken area. We are below any heat seeking equipment that might sweep to check my cottage is truly empty. If burglars come tonight they can only have been tipped off that I am away by Gadd or Parsons. Only the steady soft touch of snowflake on snowflake, branch and bush, disturbs the deathly black quietness and the crisp smell of frozen soil and vegetation.

  April is the cruellest month, says the poet T S Eliot. He means that spring brings the pain of growth to dull roots and feelings. For me the cruellest is December and ev
ery month since, and I long for a new dawn no matter what. Friday is the seventh anniversary of my demise.

  We only see the figure fleetingly when moonlight straggles out. He approaches my hedge, feels our presence, skirts around the outside of my land and veers away deep into the back woods that stretch for two miles.

  I hold Jerry’s arm to stop any pursuit, whisper, ‘It’s old Reggie May,’ the aged woman who lives in the nearby woodland cottage where she was born. This will be one of her night-time rambles, as opposed to her laying prone for twenty-four hours just watching her beloved birds. A devotee of nature, she has spent all her life as the local ‘postie’, spurning all promotions so that she could walk, cycle and latterly drive her round to constantly enjoy the natural world down the seasons year in and year out.

  Memory flies to vivid times with the legendary old lady, who appeared at our cottage on our first day with newly baked bread and home-made jam. She inspired Bess and I to make our field into a wild meadow, joining herself in what proved a herculean task with joyful gusto. I almost laugh, remembering our naïve ignorance as we launched into that labour of never ending love: weeks became months removing the top soil, even longer then digging to tear every stubborn weed out and till the ground into a fine tilth like breadcrumbs. Reggie and Sam knew the wildflowers and bushes to attract particular birds, butterflies and insects. Hence it came to pass our second autumn that seeds were expertly sown, conjuring days of long ago with names such as birds-foot trefoil, common sorrel, cowslip, knapweed, lady’s bedstraw, buttercup, daisy, clover, ribwort plantain yarrow, fescues grass, and, my wife’s favourite, crested dogs tail. I can see Bess and Reggie now, so devoted no matter the weather, watering, tending, pruning each summer before a village elder with skills of yesteryear scythed the meadow for us.

  My phone is on silent, the screen darkened, lest we be seen by any watchers but I feel the vibration as a message arrives. I peer beneath my thick coat to shade its light and see that Amy thanks me for the texted apology about my behaviour in the Incident Room. ‘No need. Quite understand. Very flattered actually. Glad I still have IT! Sitting with my father who is doing well, out of Intensive Care. X’ It is three in the morning, we have been here unmoving for four hours since I arrived back from London; hardly saying a word through the need to keep silent lest the sound travels.

  Peering between the thick tree trunks and swirling snowflakes I see a snipe, dagger beak searching in a patch of wet ground far into my wild meadow, before settling in the safe distant sedge. It disappears; its magical plumage of bars and fleets blending with the earth as we try to do.

  DC Marcia Whittle is another who has no time for sleep. She emails to give thanks for the tip, and report that the drone operation was all safely wrapped up with Mr Blair and a friend apprehended. The two were observed and filmed as they sent a large drone, packed with fifty mobile phones, fifty sim cards, three kilograms of drugs, a rope and tools for escape, over the walls of Ancaster City’s formidable prison for A list category inmates. Two prison warders and two prisoners were arrested while unloading the machine in a service courtyard and are confessing right now.

  I show Jerry, who smiles when he sees the results of the tracker device that he attached to Blair’s car and has followed electronically as it sat outside the prison at regular intervals during the past two days. Whittle texts more, ‘Even Sergeant Parsons was smiling. Cannot believe one guy was called Tony Blair, can see the headlines now! You should have been here guv, it is your collar after all. Ancaster Christmas Market was beginning to pall on all of us by midnight Saturday when this all happened at prison shift change as you suggested it would.’

  ***

  The night drifts on. Jerry and I are lost in our own thoughts, eating sandwiches regularly, sipping at our hot tea with a trace of brandy.

  I can visualise my squad at work earlier this night. Market stalls galore spread around Ancaster City’s Thirteenth Century castle atop the steep hill with surrounding medieval buildings and olde-worlde cobbled streets dwarfed by the looming grandeur of the nearby ancient cathedral.

  Sellers proclaiming their wares, offering everything from Christmas food treats, hot toddy and mulled wine, to lanterns and candles, clothes and hats, toffee and soap. As a PC and then in C.I.D. I had numerous nights dealing with the half million visitors over four days. The Christmas spirit always comes to life as families eat, drink and make merry. But the masses attract criminals, professional and opportunist, like bees round a golden honeypot. Uniform are stretched dealing with traffic, pedestrians, safety and maintaining a visible presence. My team, and a score more detectives from Odling’s and the Drugs squad, will have mingled to spot crimes as they happened, respond quickly to thefts from stalls or shops, deal with muggings, pick pockets, car thieves, robbers and burglars.

  As a child, I always went with my mother and Sam’s family, loving the magic of Christmas that the market evoked. I revelled in the streets awash with the dazzling lights and lanterns, the festive carols and pop songs booming everywhere from the brass bands and choirs on many a corner. I liked the bonhomie and Christian spirit, false or real, that everyone showed for a few hours at least. Only later recognising that it was all a highly contrived, commercial operation at root.

  Bess and I had planned to take Grace early Sunday morning, when the crowds were less boisterous and the temperature higher, over the very weekend when my family disappeared. I had never been to the market since, likely never will again lest they return.

  ***

  A dank grey dawn soils the purity of the crow-black sky. I slip into the cottage, and inch my way through the shadows to my lounge sofa and deep exhausted sleep after forty-eight hours awake. Even as Jerry steals away through the woods to spend the day with his Gran, I dream my dream.

  Crashing blind into the void of nightmare, I hear the wail of utter despair from Bess and Grace. The central heating is clanking away through the radiators, dull light all around as I jerk awake, chilled while still dressed, skin liquid with icy sweat. A shower and shave as I converse with the invisible Grace, a fried lunch cum dinner from provisions my mother brought at some point yesterday and several coffees bring me to life as evening falls once more.

  Waiting Jerry’s return and his ‘Lure and Scorch Night Three,” my mind wanders on. I grip my emotions to stay calm. What am I doing here at all? If Bess and I had not returned to Ancaster County, all would surely still be well. If I had not joined the police, the same? After all, what is, has been the point. The police, myself included, protect the property, rights, self-centred system of an elite. Once I had youthful fantasies of change for the better from within the police. Pure stupid delusion. We serve ‘them,’ are bought and paid for by the same. And though I long refused to admit it, Bess was right: my life as a copper - what I saw, dealt with day and night without end - was changing, hardening, brutalising me. What would she think of me now? I sit forlorn in my lifeless kitchen, tears flowing.

  Seven years ago, deep in the Welsh Hills, I knew it was time for drastic change. Bess had found her worthwhile path. I was going to support her, tend my family more, and forge my own brand new start, pursue a fresh road even if I was still low on detail as to what it was.

  At twenty-one I had turned my back on much. Rejected being an academic, not wanting to spend my life in a world of clashing egos battling over footnotes and chasing bums on seats for Universities rapidly becoming money making institutions. Rejected the civil service as merely putting into practice what shallow politicians, seeking on-going power, cobbled together for their own gain. Rejected the law for the same reasons I now apply to the police. Rejected joining big business because it meant a life where you become part of the problem of inequality, greed and structural injustice, covetous men seeking ever more wealth and power beyond their needs in a hundred lifetimes. And so, inexplicably I landed on the police as a career which I might enjoy; where I might help. Yes, where I might and did enjoy the buzz of ‘the chase, the game’ but for the lif
e of me, I cannot now see how I decided I might do any lasting good.

  ***

  Refilling my coffee, my recent predicament intrudes, as it must. Daniel and Jerry both think there is something bigger, wider going on around me. Trying to fit events into a single narrative that explains all by blaming a cabal of Creel, Odling, the Rudds, even Bull seems impossible. Could they organise any or all of what has gone on this week?

  No, it actually makes sense only if there is someone pulling all or most of the strings. Someone with power, money, influence. After all, despite Lucinda’s best efforts, the image of the dead woman has only just appeared on the local newspaper website. It never made the actual print run on Thursday of the Merian Standard or any of its sister papers throughout the county. Perhaps it will next week, the owner’s hand being forced by the Guardian, Independent, BBC, ITV, CNN and Sky News running the story now of an award-winning journalist dying in mysterious circumstances down a remote country lane. The national tabloids have also taken up the cudgels demanding progress on the case, though only as an irresistible way to beat on me, this time for ‘incompetence.’

  Pain stirs in my breast at the thought. Daniel and Jerry are right. This is something way beyond my normal local or at best regional crime situations; something I am simply not seeing, cannot see unless I lift my sights higher and wider.

  Any gift I have for fitting characters and events into an overall narrative is failing, badly. Perhaps the answer is bigger and so blatant that we shall count ourselves fools for not seeing it sooner.

  Monday December 17th

  68

  Dawn comes. Bones creak as we stretch. Jerry and I end our third night in the copse, watching for burglars who we thought must logically come to my cottage at some point.