Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  ‘Mmmm?’

  ‘What the hell was the idea of inviting Terry Rosco to my birthday party?’

  There was no answer; just quiet, rhythmic breathing. After a while, it became quite hypnotic.

  22

  Annie was heading back to Paddington. Via public transport, as befitted the down-on-their-luck Stillwells. She declined to lend me her car, so in order to retrieve the bike I ended up on the bus route that provided evening transport for the thrill-seekers of St Biddy’s.

  As promised, it deposited me on the main road about a mile beyond the turning to the village. The storm had left the ground damp and rejuvenated the insect life. Clouds of midges rose up from underfoot and danced tauntingly in front of my nose. Halfway to the signpost down to St Biddy’s, I came across a small unmade track meandering off at a right-angle that should lead it somewhere near the village.

  I hadn’t really intended to go into St Biddy’s, but the urge to see how they were getting on with the investigation into Luke’s death got the better of me. After all, we’d practically dated - that had to count for something. (Another entry under the largest section in your love-life diary, ‘The Ones That Got Away’? my personal demon suggested.)

  Once I’d cleared the tall hedgerows that blinkered the first hundred yards of the track, I could see across country to the rooftops of the village, with the disproportionately large church spire thrusting between them at the left-hand edge. A little closer and I made out the individual bleached red bricks of the nearest building. Blue and white fluttered from the lane side of the house, snapping out in the breeze and then lying flat against bricks again. My first assumption, that they were banners or deflated balloons signalling it was party-time inside, was revised as I got closer. It was plastic tape. The ripped remains of police tape, in fact. I was on the other end of Cowslip Lane, approaching Brick Cottage.

  I’d never seen it from this angle before. There was a smaller garden at the back, separated from the open farm fields by a hedge that had grown dense and high over the years.

  The cottage was surprisingly ugly: a plain red-brick structure with no softening climbing plants to add a bit of rural charm. Whoever had built it seemed to have been trying to squeeze it on to the smallest area of land possible. Its height somehow appeared out of proportion to its base area, an oddity which no doubt accounted for the high plaster ceilings inside. The garage had been tacked on to the section abutting on to the lane like a pimple that had erupted on party night. At present it had Carter’s eyes fixed on it with an expression of lust only slightly less intense than that he bestowed on Kelly Benting’s butt.

  He was perched on a fence post on the right side of the track, drawing a scrappy bush branch through his fingers and rubbing the leaves to nothingness.

  ‘Hi, Carter. How’s it going?’

  He gave me an odd look before dropping his head so that most of his face was concealed by the peak of his baseball cap.

  ‘Question too difficult for you?’

  ‘I don’t truck with liars.’

  ‘That must make your conversational opportunities few and far between. What am I supposed to have lied about?’

  He raised his head and pulled at his bottom lip. ‘One of the coppers told Kelly you were a private investigator. Are you investigating those people in the photos?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  Why? What’s Harry Rouse done?’

  ‘Nothing that I know of. Private investigations don’t always have to be bad news, you know. We do good as well,’ I said sanctimoniously (and largely untruthfully).

  ‘Like when they trace the long-lost heirs to a fortune or something?’ he asked, getting closer than he knew to the truth. I touched a finger to my lips.

  ‘Wow! Neat!’

  ‘Not a word, mind.’

  ‘Total lock-down, I swear!’

  We exchanged a high-five. Communications re-established, I asked Carter if the police were still in the village.

  ‘No. They pulled out last night. They’ve been all over the place, poking around in the bushes and ditches. They took stuff out of the cottage. I made a statement. And they took my fingerprints. For elimination, they said.’ He sounded proud of the fact. ‘We could have been the last people to see Luke, I reckon.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Me and Kelly. The first time. We came up here Friday afternoon. I wanted to ask Luke about something in one of those books he lent me. He gave me this.’ He tweaked the cap peak. ‘For my birthday.’

  ‘And Kelly came with you?’ Obviously she was a girl who didn’t do things half-heartedly. Having decided to stake a claim on Carter, she’d gone for it like a limpet on speed.

  ‘She can’t get enough of me,’ Carter said. ‘I reckon she was waiting until I was sixteen. So she could, you know, open up ... let me know she was keen. I can respect that. It’s cool.’

  ‘Totally cool. Where is she now?’

  ‘Lying down, her mum said. Woman’s problems. He was killed Friday night,’ he said, abruptly switching the conversation back to Luke.

  ‘The police told you that?’

  ‘No. But they were asking people where they were then. You don’t have to be Inspector Morse to work it out, do you?’

  It tied in with the weekend papers Vetch and I had found in the hall. I was surprised no one had discovered the body earlier. Carter wasn’t. ‘No reason for anyone to come here, was there? Not to go inside. And he didn’t like people just dropping by. Said it broke his concentration when he was working.’

  ‘Except for you.’

  ‘I kept an eye on the car for him. He knew he could trust me.’ He didn’t seem to be taking the death as hard as I’d have expected. But I suppose it didn’t seem real yet. Seeing the body as I had makes death very real. But if you haven’t that tangible proof in your eyes and your nose and your dreams, it’s easy to think of the dead as simply being in another place for a short while.

  ‘What did you mean by seeing him the first time? Did you and Kelly come back later?’

  ‘No, not Kelly. It was me. Me that saw him, I mean, not came back. He came in the shop just before we closed. I was minding it. Gran said she had to see to some ironing but I knew she was really doing my birthday cake.’

  ‘Nice. I never got to eat mine.’

  Carter offered me a slice of his. ‘There’s loads left. Gran only eats a little. And Kelly didn’t want any.’

  ‘Kelly came to your birthday party?’

  ‘It wasn’t a party really. I mean, no one else from school lives around here ... and what with my birthday always being in the summer holidays ...’

  I got the message. Carter had no friends to speak of.

  ‘But Kelly came. She brought me a card. And I showed her all my space stuff.’

  Lucky old Kelly.

  ‘Then we hitched up later and went into Seatoun. She’s really hot for me, you know.’

  ‘You said.’

  The surface of the lane was muddier here. The storm’s downpour had softened the ruts into a consistency that caused a sucking, glooping sound every time I lifted my trainer. It was doing the same with Carter’s. Idly I followed the patterns of our respective shoes. Mine were in a straight line, but Carter’s trampled up to the doorway. The last imprint disappeared half under the door. I looked at him and saw him knowing that I knew.

  ‘You’ve got a key.’

  ‘No.’ He ducked under the baseball cap again.

  ‘You’re a lousy liar, Carter. Remind me to give you lessons.’

  He looked up again. ‘I didn’t steal it. Luke gave it to me.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘I never told the police. I mean, they never asked, but I thought it might be like ... concealing evidence or something.’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so. Unless you killed him?’

  ‘Course I didn’t! We were mates. We talked.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Films. And the States. And ... you
know . . . stuff. He had this, like, really wild time when he was a kid. Hung out with some mean guys.’

  ‘He said.’

  Carter was visibly disappointed that he wasn’t the only one Luke had confided in. Something had to be done to re-establish his position as Luke’s number-one buddy. ‘Want to see inside?’ Before I could decline, Carter had taken the key from his pocket and was heaving the up-and-over open.

  The shelves were lined with all those half-used decorating tins that tend to accumulate, plus assorted garden preparations, car polishes and shampoos. A neat line of gardening implements were hanging from a row of hooks and two black motorcycle helmets with smoked visors sat on pegs above an old motorbike.

  The car was sitting in the centre of the concrete floor. Beyond it was a door to the rest of the cottage.

  ‘You can’t get in,’ Carter said, following my eyes. ‘Luke always kept it locked.’

  ‘Didn’t he give you a key for that?’

  ‘No. Just the garage.’

  ‘What about the bike? Was that his uncle’s too?’

  ‘Do me a favour. He was ancient. That’s Luke’s.’

  I hadn’t ridden one for years, but perhaps his next-of-kin might be persuaded to let it go for a bargain price. It wasn’t a very noble thought when its late owner was probably still being reassembled into a tidy package by the pathologist, but a girl’s got to eat, and somehow I had the feeling that a PI who cruised up in leathers and metal was going to be perceived as cooler than a puffed-out female on Emmeline Pankhurst’s bike.

  Talking of which ... ‘I’ve got to split, Carter. Do you know if the Rouses are in?’

  ‘If they aren’t, they’ll be back soon. They’re planting out this week.’ He smoothed a final caress over the car’s headlight. ‘You won’t tell anybody, will you - about me having the key?’

  ‘Not my business, Carter.’ But something else was. ‘Did Luke ever talk about his girlfriends?’

  ‘No. The police asked me that.’

  And probably for much the same reason as I had. Somebody had made those other two calls to Luke’s mobile service complaining about his failure to turn up for a date. And she was a somebody with a voice very like mine. Coincidence or deliberate?

  I asked Carter again if he was absolutely certain Luke had never mentioned any female friends. ‘Couple of blokes together. They usually compare the talent. See who’s ahead in the pulling stakes.’

  I hoped the implied compliment - that he and Luke were on equal footing when it came to pulling power - might make him chattier. But instead, he ducked his head beneath the cap peak again and mumbled a denial. I was almost certain he did know something. I was equally sure he wasn’t about to open up to me. I left him mooning over the car and made my way back the way I’d come until I re-joined the main road.

  Life around Tyttenhall Farm was buzzing compared with my last visit. There were three kids - mid teens - wandering around one of the ploughed fields, apparently fussing over rows of limp green plants that seemed to have been spewed out by a large yellow farm machine of some description.

  The farmyard itself was as lifeless as before. Nobody seemed to be paying me any attention. I edged towards the barn, still half convinced Atch was going to jump me any minute despite the fact I’d taken care to wear a plain white T-shirt, grey jogger bottoms and a pink cardi today. (I figured the cardi was a clincher. How many military policemen were going to be into sugar-mouse pink?)

  The barn showed signs of activity. Empty plywood boxes were scattered over the floor and full sacks of some kind of chemical were piled in one corner. The concrete was smeared with clumps of mud and boot marks, indicating the regular tramp of feet in and out since the storm’s downpour. As I’d hoped, Grannie Vetch’s bicycle had been stored in here too.

  I scooted it out, one foot on the pedal, and heard the sounds of an approaching vehicle. I stood and waited while the truck bounced and bucked its noisy way up the rutted track. There were more of those plywood crates stacked in the back.

  Harry climbed out of the driver’s seat whilst his dad decamped from the passenger side. My ‘Hello, Atch’ received no more than a suspicious sideways glance before he shuffled to the back of the vehicle. I wondered if rumours of my real job had reached the Rouses as well - hence the cold shoulder. But when I looked at Harry there was no hostility. He shook his head fractionally. ‘Bad night,’ he mouthed.

  ‘I took the bike. Sorry I couldn’t make it yesterday.’

  ‘Not a problem. Dad, leave that!’

  Atch had pulled one of the crates half off the pile. It crashed to the floor and split open, spilling what looked like more of those sickly green seedlings into a heap. Atch backed away with a look of alarm.

  ‘It’s OK, Dad,’ Harry sighed. He sounded tired.

  ‘Can I help?’ I asked, indicating the mess of soil and greenery.

  ‘It’s OK. I’ll get the kids over.’ Inserting two fingers in his mouth, he summoned a couple of the field workers and set them to unloading crates and sweeping up the spillage.

  ‘What are they?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Cauliflowers. We buy them in as seedlings from the wholesaler’s warehouse. It’s a bloody useless way to live, but it’s the only one I know and I’m too old to start at something else now.’

  ‘What’s useless about cauliflowers?’ I couldn’t stand the stuff myself, but somebody must be eating the tasteless squidge and chewy stalks.

  ‘Nothing,’ Harry said. ‘If anyone was going to eat them. We harvested the early crop six weeks ago. At least there was some point to them. The market wholesalers took it off soon as it came out of the ground. There’s satisfaction in that. Seeing food being harvested and gathered in. Knowing it’s going to feed folks ... be part of the cycle, same as it’s always been since folk’s started growing things. But this ...’ He kicked a dying seedling that had been over looked in the clean-up. ‘Know what’s going to happen to this? It’ll be tended, protected, harvested and thrown into a great big pile with another four hundred and ninety-nine of its friends. Then a man will come along, count all the piles of five hundred, and write me a cheque for them. After that, this little fellow, and all the others, will be carted off - and burnt to a cinder. Such is the joy of the Common Agricultural Policy.’ He gave me a mock bow.

  It was plainly a sore point with him. But not one I felt like kissing better. ‘I’ll be off then.’

  I swung a leg over the bike. Harry asked if I was heading back to Seatoun.

  ‘Steeple Ashlyn.’

  ‘That’s a good twenty miles. I can take you part of the way if you want. I’ve another load to collect anyway.’

  Atch was squashed between the pair of us in the front but he seemed determined to ignore me today, keeping his eyes fixed ahead through the window-screen and his hands clasped over his knees. Each time we went around a corner, his knuckles tensed, opening up the festering grazes along them.

  ‘Did you have an accident, Atch?’ I touched the reddened skin. The old boy flinched as if my fingers were red-hot.

  ‘He hit them against the door,’ Harry said. ‘I locked him in his bedroom last night.’ Anticipating my response, he snapped: ‘I had no choice. He wanders off. I had to get some sleep.’

  ‘Sure.’ I paused to let him negotiate a narrow turn between stone garden walls spilling over with the exuberance of summer’s growth. The flowers shed their petals like confetti over the bonnet. ‘No luck getting any nursing help at the farm?’

  ‘I told you. It costs.’

  ‘There’s respite care ...’

  ‘He’s my dad. Nobody’s putting him in a home.’ His tone was final. And then it changed and he said awkwardly: ‘I’ve not said thanks. For not saying anything to the coppers the other night about Dad and the gun. I’m grateful.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ I asked if he’d heard anything more about Luke’s death.

  ‘Policeman came up the farm. Asked if I’d seen anything. Told him I didn’t even know the bl
oke. Which, now I think about it, might not have been true— Bloody idiot, are you blind!’ This final remark was directed at a tractor that had pulled out of a concealed gate and nearly rammed us. The truck’s bearings squealed in protest as we rocked, rolled and righted ourselves.

  Atch whimpered in fright and grabbed my hand. I whimpered right back.

  ‘Sorry,’ Harry panted. ‘Everyone OK?’

  ‘Terrific. We must do that again sometime. You were saying - about knowing Luke?’

  ‘Not him. But years ago Eric Groom used to have a sister come stay sometimes. She had kids, couple of boys and a girl. This Luke must have been one of their kids, the way I see it. Make him Eric’s great-nephew.’

  ‘Ginny,’ Atch said, unexpectedly returning to Planet Reality. ‘Ginny, the girl’s name were. Fast piece. Come up the house showing everything she had. Not the sort you want on a farm. That kind don’t settle. Soon got tired and moved on to the next lad. You needed a steady local girl, Harry.’

  ‘I had one. She divorced me, remember?’ Harry muttered into the windscreen. ‘Well, it’s too late now ... a long way too late.’ I thought that was the end of the conversation. But Atch said: ‘That was Ginny’s boy in the red car, was it? Don’t surprise me. She always had plenty to say for herself too.’

  ‘You talked to him, Atch?’

  ‘Harry did.’

  This would seem to be at odds with his son’s recent statement. Harry said shortly: ‘We had words - once.’

  ‘About what?’

  Atch had really achieved splash-down on Planet Normal. He said in that soft, rational voice he’d used when speaking to me the night of Luke’s death, ‘Trespassing. He had that car of his up my place. Drove it around the yards. Over the fields too.’

  ‘What did he do that for?’

  ‘Show off, these youngsters, don’t they? Wheelies. Handbrake turns. Neighbour had them running drag races over his fields a few years back.’

  ‘Is that what Luke was doing?’ It was hard to picture.

  ‘Said he wasn’t there at all. Said we must be seeing things.’