Grave Stones

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘Have you noticed anything else?’

  The woman looked at him now with wise eyes and a touch of humour.

  ‘Apart from the police cars screaming round the place, do you mean? Or the house-to-house interviews going on across the road all afternoon? What specifically, Constable?’ Her mouth actually twitched.

  So she’d actually read the ID card.

  ‘There’s been an incident,’ he said carefully.

  ‘So I gathered.’

  ‘At the farm. I’m afraid the farmer’s had an accident.’

  ‘An accident, Constable? Do you mean he’s fallen off the haystack or turned his tractor over?’

  Hesketh-Brown felt hot. There was no fooling this woman, was there?

  He hid in the cloak of protocol. ‘I can’t tell you any more than that, Mrs Barnes. When did you last see Mr Grimshaw?’

  Hilary Barnes thought for a minute. ‘Certainly not in the last week,’ she said. ‘Before that…’ Her face was taut in concentration. ‘I think probably about a fortnight ago. He was driving his tractor very slowly along the road. There were quite a few cars behind him getting very impatient.’ Again that touch of wry humour.

  Hesketh-Brown gleaned nothing more from Mrs Hilary Barnes. He moved next door.

  Korpanski had fiddled for a while with a phone. He was torn. Joanna wouldn’t want to come home and walk straight into a murder investigation but she would play merry hell with him if he didn’t tell her as soon as he could. Tomorrow, he argued, surely, would be soon enough, but he could picture her frown when she asked, sarcastically, when, exactly, had he planned on telling her. In the end he deferred the decision. Front desk had told him Grimshaw’s daughter was sitting outside, waiting to speak to him.

  Joanna and Mike were stuck in a queue, fuming alongside a hundred other motorists. A lorry had shed its load on the M6 causing tailbacks, they heard, when they tuned in to the local radio station. Matthew came to a halt, put his hazard lights on and slid his hand into hers. ‘Back with a bump,’ he commented good-humouredly. Joanna nodded and put off switching her mobile back on, feeling that for now she, too, was still in holiday mode. The minute the phone was on she would be back in the swing of things. Work, her mother, her sister. She could almost hear their overexcited shrieks when she told them about the engagement. She eyed the phone in the bottom of her bag with malevolence and left it switched off.

  Judy Grimshaw had changed beyond all recognition and yet the shell was the same – colourless, nondescript, thin rather than slim, shoulders hunched and rounded. Glasses that gave her a goggle-eyed look. But what Korpanski observed had changed most about her was an unattractive and cynical twist to her thin lips emphasised by a strange choice of deep orange lipstick, which made her mouth look like a garish gash. Korpanski surmised that life had not treated Judy Grimshaw as well as she had anticipated when they were at school together. She had always worn the air of a woman who was going places. How often do these people lead ordinary lives, doing mundane jobs, living within a few miles of their birthplace? He glanced at her wedding-ring finger and noticed not only was it bare but there was no tan line or little bump where a wedding ring had been recently.

  ‘Hi, Judy,’ he said. ‘Remember me?’

  ‘Mike?’ Her expression moved swiftly through pleasure and embarrassment, settling into tight-lipped anger.

  So she did.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Let’s go somewhere more private, shall we?’

  She nodded and followed him down the corridor to an empty interview room, where they both sat down. ‘I’m sorry, Judy,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to have to break it to you like this.’

  She watched, curious, silent and unafraid, waiting for him to speak.

  Korpanski swallowed. ‘I’m afraid it’s your dad. He’s met with an accident.’

  Her pale eyes met his and her mouth twisted even more out of shape. ‘An accident? What sort of accident?’

  ‘It looks like murder. I’m sorry.’

  She brushed the apologies aside. ‘Don’t keep saying you’re sorry, Mike. What’s happened? Tell me.’

  ‘He was found on the farm – near the wall that borders the estate.’

  The mouth, which he now thought ugly, twitched but she stayed silent, leaving the entire burden of speech with him.

  ‘There isn’t a nice way to say this, Judy. He’s dead. His head had been smashed in.’

  She was uncomprehending. ‘Who by?’

  ‘We don’t know yet.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said sarcastically. ‘It’s a bit soon for you to have made an arrest.’

  ‘We just don’t know, Judy.’ He could hear the defensive tone in his voice. ‘Put it like this: there isn’t anyone obvious.’

  ‘Was it theft?’

  Had circumstances been different Korpanski might have chortled at the question. From that pathetically poor and neglected farmhouse? What would anyone steal? The family silver?

  He tried to say it nicely. ‘I don’t suppose there was a lot to take.’

  ‘Not the thousands of pounds he kept in his mattress?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Judy Grimshaw crossed her skinny legs encased in faded jeans. ‘Come on, Mickey, surely you’ve heard about farmers who don’t trust banks.’

  He hated being called Mickey. It had been a schooltag, a mockery of his Polish father who had always had trouble speaking the Queen’s English though no problem at all fighting for King and country through the Second World War. The teasing had also been one of the reasons he worked out at the gym three times a week. If he didn’t want to be called Mickey then he wouldn’t be. His height had helped. Six foot four inches topped most men.

  He eyed Judy Grimshaw and couldn’t decide if the money-under-the-mattress yarn was simply that or the truth. He settled on blunt confrontation.

  ‘Did he?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I hardly went near the place.’

  Korpanski nodded. It fitted in with what he’d already been told.

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘If you want to, I can take you to the mortuary. We need—’

  ‘Identification,’ she supplied.

  Concern about the state her father was in must have leaked into his face because Judy gave the ghost of a smile. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m a nurse. Remember?’

  ‘Yeah, but surely it’s different – being your dad and all.’

  ‘I’ve seen it all before,’ she said wearily.

  ‘OK. But before we go, I have to ask you,’ Mike said, ‘if you know of anyone who had a grudge against him? Anyone who might want him dead?’

  The second ghost of a smile. ‘Apart from the inhabitants of the estate who paid grossly over-inflated prices for an exclusive view of the scruffiest farm in Staffordshire?’

  If only police too could hide behind the phrase No comment.

  Korpanski felt the muscles in his neck stiffen. He stood up and led her out to the parking lot.

  During the journey he made an effort at conversation. ‘Married, are you?’

  ‘Divorced.’ She almost spat the word.

  ‘Kids?’

  ‘A daughter.’

  ‘And your mum?’ He remembered a thin woman with untidy hair and a worn face, who always wore an apron around the farm so that once when Judy was in the choir he hadn’t recognised the woman attending a school concert in a black skirt, smart green box jacket and high-heeled black shoes as her mother.

  ‘Ha.’ There was venom in the expletive. ‘My mother? Left Dad years ago. Having a fine old time with her lover. Spain, London, New York. You name it.’

  She turned and looked at Korpanski. ‘She was young when she met my dad. Just nineteen. Fell pregnant with me practically straight away. Had all these illusions about being a farmer’s wife. She didn’t know how hard farmers expect their wives to work in this part of the world. Years later, when she’d milked and got up at dawn day in, day out, stunk of animals all
the time and catered for all the farmhands, she finally saw the light and moved out. Met another man.’

  She sat back, folded her arms, pleased with herself. ‘Had a lot of sense, my mum.’

  Korpanski struggled to find something to say.

  ‘Do you see much of her?’

  The mouth distorted. ‘Not since the day she left. Too busy making up for lost time to get in touch with her daughter.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be.’ Judy’s face was hard and bitter. ‘I prefer to think of her living it up at the high spots of the world rather than drudging around on that blighted place.’ There was something brave about the words that didn’t quite ring true.

  Again Korpanski could find no suitable response. He almost shrivelled in the face of so much venom. He knew he should be asking a significant question but it had slipped out of his mind. He was stuck, which gave Judy the opportunity to take the lead, eyeing him as he drove. ‘You always were a hunk,’ she said. ‘Look after yourself, don’t you, Mickey?’

  She put her hand over his on the steering wheel.

  ‘I’m married, Judy,’ he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead. The hand slid away slowly, back to her lap. ‘Yeah, well,’ she said, ‘so was my husband when he took up with…’ She held her fingers up. ‘Now, was it four or five different women? Not always in succession. He liked more than one at a time. It fed his ego when I wasn’t enough.’

  Korpanski was glad when they arrived at the morgue.

  In his time, Korpanski had watched plenty next-of-kin identifications. He had never seen one without some form of emotion – sorrow, grief, anger – some sign that there had once been a connection between the dead and the living, the person who was deemed to be close enough to the deceased to tick the box of next of kin. Judy Grimshaw (he must find out her married name – or rather the name she went under these days) stared down at her father. ‘That’s him,’ she said, then pulled the cloth back over his face and walked out. Korpanski watched her. Not a muscle had twitched for the old man. Even he felt more sympathy for the old farmer now.

  He was glad to drop her back at the police station to pick up her car and find himself alone, back in his office.

  He rang the team of scenes of crime officers.

  ‘Found anything?’

  ‘Nothing further of significance except that the mattresses in all the bedrooms have been ripped apart. Probably with a knife. Your assailant must have been in quite a mess. Foam and horsehair and stuffing all over the place. One of my lads had an asthma attack and has had to go home.’

  ‘Any money there?’

  ‘Little cash box in the sitting room, forty pounds in it. Nothing else.’

  Korpanski put the phone down and wondered then if Judy Grimshaw’s story was true. Surely, surely people didn’t really hide money in mattresses these days? Korpanski allowed his mind to wander. In these days of Internet banking, holes in the wall and credit cards? Surely not.

  Or had someone merely thought there would be money there? Plenty of people know there doesn’t have to be real cash – just the storybook kind that villains believe in. And act on. The Chinese whispers that feed legends. And at some point, in one person’s ear, legend becomes fact.

  In this case it might be difficult sorting out fact from fable.

  Korpanski came to a decision. He’d put it off long enough. He checked his watch. A little after six. He picked up the phone and dialled. ‘Hi, Jo,’ he began, when he was through to the landline answer phone.

  6.40 p.m.

  It was around half an hour later that Matthew and Joanna finally dropped their luggage onto the floor of Waterfall Cottage, Joanna feeling the familiar sinking feeling we all have on our return from a dream holiday.

  Back to the nightmare. She had sometimes wondered whether it is better not to have escaped in the first place because, however humdrum it is, we all have to return to our daily lives.

  Bills.

  The washing.

  A leak?

  The answer phone flickering. And that was before they a) checked their mail, picked up their emails and switched on their mobile phones and b) told anyone that they were engaged.

  There were eight messages. Joanna pressed the play button.

  Eloise. ‘Hi, Dad. Just wanted to tell you I have an interview next week at Staffordshire University Med School.’ She was already picking up the abbreviations that mark the chosen few from the rest of the populace. ‘Just wondered if I could stay with you the night before. Dad,’ her childish voice rose an octave, ‘I’m so excited. Well – excited and nervous. Anyway, hope you’ve had a great holiday. You did the right thing getting away. The weather here’s been foul. Love.

  She didn’t need to leave her name. Our nearest and dearest don’t.

  Joanna’s mother was next, reminding her not to forget her nephew’s birthday. ‘You are Daniel’s godmother, Joanna.’ No hope you’ve had a nice holiday or anything pleasant or civilised, Joanna noticed, and she hadn’t forgotten Daniel’s birthday anyway. She pressed delete.

  There were a few more, Tom and Caro inviting them out to supper. ‘They had some great news.’

  And lastly: ‘Hi, Jo.’ Korpanski’s gruff voice. ‘Hope you’ve had a good holiday. No need for you to worry. Everything’s under control. But I thought you’d want to know right away there’s been a murder. Old farmer bashed around the head round about a week ago. Out at Prospect Farm. No one in the picture yet. Cray’s done the PM. Cause of death: head injury caused by one of the stones from the wall. Heavy old thing. Some animals involved. The vet, Beeston, suspects the dog was poisoned and the animals probably died of thirst, basically. One pig seems to have survived. Name of Old Spice. I’ll buy you a drink if you can guess the name of his wife.’ A dry chuckle before he continued. ‘Anyway, see you tomorrow.’ A pause. ‘Umm – I’m looking forward to having you back.’

  Joanna looked at the ring on her finger and touched the black pearl, smooth as milk, an omen. A murder investigation. Straight back into the thick of it. Late nights, broken dates. Total absorption and commitment. And Eloise coming to stay next week. She looked across the room at Matthew. His mouth was straight.

  She lifted her eyebrows and held her hands out in a what-can-I-do? expression, and Matthew’s face didn’t change a bit as he dialled Eloise’s mobile.

  Chapter Four

  Wednesday, 19th September. 8.30 a.m.

  Joanna felt frustrated. She’d been looking forward to getting back on her bike after the holiday. Autumn was such a colourful time to ride through the moorlands and the nights would soon be drawing in, the clocks going back and the pleasure of her morning and afternoon trips to and from work would be diminished.

  But now there was a major investigation. And she’d carried out enough major incident cases to know that time was of the essence. No meandering around wobbling on a bicycle like an old-fashioned Plod. The public expected something much more snappy. Also, she might need to use her car during the day. So she reluctantly left her cycling shorts in the drawer and picked out a straight black skirt, black shirt, a scarlet jacket and medium-heeled black shoes. She gave a regretful glance at her paperback, which was sitting on the chair. Charlie Fox would have to suspend activities until things quietened down a bit. She glanced out of the window. The day looked dull but it felt warm so she didn’t bother with tights. She always laddered them anyway and her legs were quite brown. She slipped the pearl ring on her finger and wondered what Korpanski would say. He could be unpredictable but, of course, distracted by a major investigation, which he had handled for the critical first twenty-four hours, he probably wouldn’t be in the slightest bit interested in her personal life.

  As she brushed her hair she reflected – one good thing about returning to work at full speed was that it was the perfect excuse for delaying telling her mother and sister about their engagement. ‘Too busy, Mum.’ She mouthed the words.

  She and Matthew had a quick breakfast befo
re loading the dishes into the dishwasher. She kissed him goodbye and left.

  Her Honda started the first time like the great little workhorse it was and she was in the station within fifteen minutes, parked in one of the protected lots. Cycling in would have taken her a lot longer. Even discounting the necessary change and shower.

  From the moment she walked in it was easy to tell that things were far from normal. For a start, there were clusters of officers talking in the hallway. She greeted them before going straight to her office to find Korpanski already at his desk. And that, in itself, was out of the norm.

  ‘Morning,’ she said lightly. ‘Thanks for the message.’

  Korpanski stood up, his eyes glowing a welcome. ‘Great to have you back, Jo.’

  ‘I’d like to say it’s nice to be back,’ she said dryly, ‘but it isn’t.’

  ‘You look well,’ he commented. ‘Tanned. Happy.’

  She planted a box of chocolates on his desk. ‘Little pressie,’ she said, ‘from España.’

  ‘No need to ask if you’ve had a good time.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Or what you’ve been doing with yourself. Judging from your tan, not a lot more than sitting in the sun.’

  She giggled. ‘Not only that,’ she said.

  Now was the ideal time to tell him, while all his attention was on her, but Mike moved on quickly.

  ‘I’ve arranged a briefing for nine thirty.’

  ‘Which just gives you time to fill me in.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He paused.

  ‘I gave you the bare details on the phone. Farmer’s name: Jakob Grimshaw. Age: sixty-three. Lived alone—’

  She interrupted. ‘No wife? No family?’

  ‘One daughter lives and works in Stoke, wife either divorced or separated. She went her own way years ago.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Last seen alive for certain on Sunday, 9th September, just over week ago. He kept himself to himself. Neighbours started noticing a smell a few days back. One of them, a Mrs Kathleen Weston, went to investigate. The odd numbers of the Prospect Farm Estate back on to the farm. The boundary is the dry stone wall. Grimshaw’s body was found propped up against it. The copestone was found near the body with traces of skin, hair and brain tissue on it. Forensics are analysing everything but I can you their findings without the benefit of a microscope.’ Korpanski gave one of his mirthless smiles, lifted by a twinkle in his eyes. Joanna smiled back. ‘The even numbers of the estate back onto fields. The neighbour, Mrs Weston, from number 1, climbed the wall to investigate the smell and the flies and found the farmer’s body collapsed against it.’