by Diana Launt
Rachel had sorted through all her mother’s cupboards and boxes of bric-a-brac in the loft and kitchen cupboards and found an assortment of items to sell. It was uplifting to spend some quality time with her mother alone, she did miss her dad but no doubt, he was having the time of his life with his mates fishing.
She had stationed Harry on the gates to collect the table monies, and they had plenty of spare tables to stop people throwing the merchandise on sheets on the floor. She hated the older people having to bend down and scramble about in boxes on the floor. It was much better to be able to forage about on a table than worry about the health and safety issues of people slipping or tripping over things on the floor, let alone doing their back in bending over.
She envisaged that it was safer having Harry on the gates taking money than having him on a stall helping. No way was she having any more scraps with the volunteers.
It was still early and they had already twenty cars set up. One thing she did make clear that she did not want people let in until most of the cars were set up. She just hated it when she was getting stuff out of the car and you got people coming up rummaging through your stuff before you got it out on the table. Rachel was not a morning person so she could be very sharp and give them a whip-lashing if they did not heed her words of annoyance.
She also hated having a stall herself, but having her mother do a stall with her was better because she could wander around looking for bargains on the other stalls. Rachel adored rummaging on the stalls, loved to find a bargain, and was always first in the queue at the sales. There were some very good antiques shops in Horncastle and she loved a day out round the shops followed by lunch at one of the many cafes that is what she called a good day.
The tables were getting set up now and it was nearly time to let the people in at 8am.
“Mum is it okay for me to have a quick look round before we let the crowd in, see if there are any bargains to be had. Is there anything in particular that you want me to look out for?”
Maria replied. “You could look whether there are any themed birthday cake tins. I’ve had a few people ask me to bake birthday cakes and I’ve only got boring square or round tins.”
“Okay mum, be back in a while. I will get you a coffee on the way back; Becky is making refreshments in the kitchen. Do you want a slice of cake too, I think we’ve got parkin, fruit cake or lemon drizzle.”
“Oh I’d love a slice of lemon drizzle and a coffee. Thanks love.”
Rachel strolled around the car boot, stopping and delving through the goods on the stalls. At one stall, she found an assortment of paperbacks at twenty-five pence each or five for a pound, so she picked herself ten books out. There was nothing she liked better than to sit in her conservatory with a nice cup of tea and a good book.
On the next row she came across some cake moulds in the several different shapes, and also some tiny flower paste moulds for decorating the tops of cakes, so she had a quick saunter round the rest of the stalls and went back to tell her mum about the lady with the cake moulds.
When she got back to her stall, her mum was busy talking with Harry.
“Hello Harry, we seem to have done alright with the car boot, plenty of people have turned out too.”
“Yes, here’s the takings, well over two hundred pounds. When you add that together with the money from refreshments you’ll have made a tidy bit and we should get a few more in before Christmas.”
“Yes Harry thanks for your time, you can go and get a cup of tea now and have a look round the car boot yourself.”
“I’m not in any rush and besides I was never one for rummaging in boxes. I’ve been having a cosy chat with Maria here. She says that you are having a mother and daughter weekend and that Frank is away fishing.”
“Yes we are having a pamper weekend, facials, pedicure, manicure, a few bottles of wine and our favourite meals and films.”
“Yes and I am not watching Mary Blooming Poppins again, I watched that so many times when you were a child it drove me raving mad,” Maria revealed.
Harry was getting very excited about the fact that the two women would be on their own all weekend, and knew he had tonight or tomorrow to act.
“I’m sure you will have the time of your life, all those beauty treatments, but I am sure you two ladies know that you are not in need of them, you are beautiful enough in my eyes, on the inside and outside.”
Oh, what a charmer he could be and they fell for it every time. So nice of you two women to beautify yourselves for me, and I would not mind watching Mary Poppins with you because it would not drive me mad because I am already raving mad. I will not miss this opportunity to play with the Hammond women, after all you will be sitting ducks, and will let me in because you know me.
“You do know how to charm us ladies don’t you Harry, if I’d known you’d have been here I would have brought you a coffee and a piece of cake. We were here before you and had set up ready before you went on the gate, we can’t stand all that rummaging in your car by the booters before we are ready and set up, can we Rachel,” Maria said.
“You’re right mum it drives me nuts all that pushing and shoving,” Rachel said.
“Never Mind Rachel, I’ve bought myself a ploughman’s, I’ve just got to get it out of the freezer box in the boot of my car, then I might go and buy myself a piece of that lemon drizzle as it looks scrumptious. See you girls later,” and he meant that literally.
CHAPTER 35
Meanwhile Adam had been running the raffle and this year there had been many prize donations such as bottles of wine, whisky, gin, different chocolates etc. and he had been busy most of the day selling raffle tickets. At the quiet times, he had been watching the car boot and laughing at some of the haggling going on.
He had nicknames for all the regulars that set up car boots. Bobble Cap who always wore a hat like a tea cosy, evidently, his wife knitted him a new one every winter and he felt obliged to wear them. Arnie, built like a brick shithouse and like the name would not take shit off anybody and folk knew not to try to barter with him, as they would get a good clip around the earhole if they wound him up. Scratch it who always had his hand down his trousers scratching. There was one particular man, when his wife went round looking at the stalls he sold everything on the stall for fifty pence and pocketed the money instead of placing it in the cash tin on the table, and a real row broke out when she got back. Obviously, that was his beer money for later.
He did seem to notice Harry and the way he behaved with the women and young girls. He had the gift of the gab all right and was a right charmer.
He reckoned that at one point he was going a bit too far and getting too familiar with the young girls, and Adam guessed he ought not be laughing, joking, and wrapping his arms round them. How old was he, say about fifty. He was definitely old enough to be their dad. He could tell the girls were getting annoyed with him because they were shrugging his hand off their shoulders. He could not hear what he was talking about but he could tell with the girl’s body language that they were not too pleased with him.
He did not like the way Harry was behaving and decided he would have a word with Rachel later to raise his concerns. She might think that he was being a bit petty, but there you go, he had to have his say.
Adam rang his bell, ding-a-ling-a-ling, to tell people the raffle was about to be drawn and to get their tickets ready. He asked Becky to draw out twenty raffle ticket numbers and pin them to a board so that the people could come and check their raffle tickets. All the prizes were sitting on the table with the winning numbers taped to the appropriate prize.
One older person was over the moon because she had won a bottle of whisky and enlightened him that whisky was her favourite tipple, and she reckoned that is the reason she had lived to such a ripe age of eighty-five years, and toddled off chuffed as if she had won the lottery.
Rachel passed by the raffle stall and Adam waved to attract her attention.
He shouted. “Rachel ca
n I have a quick word with you?”
“Yes Adam, how’s the raffle doing?”
“Good, Eva Bentley has just won a bottle of whisky and she looks like a Cheshire Cat.”
“Aww well she would do, she likes a tipple, does our Eva. Anyway, what was you after me for?”
“It’s probably nothing, but that Harry fella that was on the gate, he is a bit of a womaniser and was chatting the women up and the young girls and he is old enough to be their father.”
“Adam you know what some of these blokes are like, they think they look in the mirror and Brad Pitt smiles back at them. No harm in looking so long as they don’t touch.”
“That’s the thing, he was touching and they were shrugging him off. He is not the same person that we had the trouble with at the Bring and Buy with Reggie. Where is Reggie by the way?, he told me he was coming to do a Car Boot, to get out of the way of his wife and that she had loads of books to get rid of,” Adam said.
“There is someone selling loads of books because I bought ten, but it’s not Mrs Brown that’s running the stall. As for Reggie, Mrs Brown rang me up to see whether Reggie had been into work this weekend because he went off to the pub Saturday teatime and no one has seen him since. I reckon that he got so pissed that he daren’t go home and suffer the consequences,” Rachel said.
“Can’t blame him, I’ve been on the sharp edge of Mrs Brown’s tongue, she is a bit of a bruiser,” Adam said laughing.
CHAPTER 36
Meanwhile Jake and Amelia had been at the 8am Monday morning team meeting with DSupt. Blackwell. He was a good man and it would be sad to see him retire the following year. He certainly knew how to empower his team, even when days were grim, the team would do anything for him.
Oliver Blackwell was called away from the meeting for an urgent phone call. He excused himself and accepted the call from a WPC Haddon.
He came back into the meeting and broke the news of another murder, this time it was a man.
“Right lets have your attention lads and lasses, we have another body on the Horncastle Road dumped in the undergrowth. WPC Haddon pointed out that a car on the hard shoulder had flagged her down.” Followed by “Are you listening you lot, quiet please.”
“Yes Guv.” They all shouted in chorus.
“Right then if you’re listening. Evidently, the family had pulled over because the little boy wanted to pee, and he got a nasty shock and pissed all down his trousers, screamed for his mother, saying Batman was dead in the bushes. His mother searched in the undergrowth and there was Batman, a man dressed up in kinky gear, black leather suit, mask, and ball gag the lot. To top it all off his hands trussed up like a chicken together with pink fluffy handcuffs... Oh and a polythene bag over his head.”
Jake said, “Do you want me and Amelia to get off to the scene of crime.”
“Yes, and I want to come and see this one for myself.”
“Get it on the storyboard lads, and if you bloody dare write ‘Batman’ as the name on the board, I will have you by the short and curlies, hear me.” Oliver said.
When they arrived at the scene, WPC Haddon approached DSupt. Oliver Blackwell and told him that he would like this one.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You will see, not every day you see a dead body kitted out like that.”
Oliver tramped over to the ditch and pulled the undergrowth to one side, and there lay Reggie Brown in all his glory, black kinky leather suit, mask, ball gag with the pink fluffy handcuffs on his wrists.
“Oh dear, someone really wanted to get their point across here. Could it be that bloke that went missing, what’s his name, Reggie Brown? She was going to ring us back if she hadn’t heard from him,” Oliver wondered aloud.
At that point, the Crime Scene Investigators and Forensics arrived and started to set up the paper around the body.
Jake and Amelia rang the nick to get Mrs Brown’s address to call round and see whether Reggie had been in touch with her.
They got the address that she gave the police when she went to the station to inform them that her husband was missing. They wondered how Mrs Brown would take this. They couldn’t tell her too much because they didn’t know that it was her husband, but she might be able to give them more information so that they could identify him.
They knocked on the door, and she answered straight away. She was still in her dressing gown with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth when she answered the door.
“Mrs Brown isn’t it? Jake inquired.
“Yes, what can I do for you? Have you come about placing my husband on the missing persons list, about bloody time? I was going to come in to see you again tomorrow to see what you’re going to do about the situation,” she snapped.
“I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jake Hammond and this is Detective Sergeant Amelia Saunders. We understand that you rang the police yesterday because your husband had not come home from the pub. Have you heard from him since then?” Jake asked.
“No, not a peep. As I said, if you were listening, I was going to ring you again today. It is not like him to stay out with no contact. He would not dare do that, he knows I will give him what for when he comes back. He would be too scared to annoy me, and he knows what the consequences will be. He knows he’ll get a right walloping, and I am getting really worried now. What do you think might have happened to him? I rang the Forum to see whether he had turned up to work, but he hadn’t,” she blurted.
“What do you mean, the Forum?” Jake asked.
“That’s where he works, he’s a volunteer. You know it’s a Community Forum, one of them places that helps organise funding for events and weekend trips, works with community groups. They call him up as and when they need him, or if he feels like doing a bit he rings them. It does not affect our benefits if he does a bit of work, and it looks good that he is volunteering. They don’t seem to pester him as much at the Social, and it gets him out of my way too,” she scoffed.
“We don’t want to worry you Mrs Brown, but this morning we found a body on the Horncastle Road. We do not have much information now because it is still at the scene of crime and forensics have to do their work and have to check for footprints, fingerprints, all the DNA etc. so the body won’t go to the morgue till all that is complete,” Jake said.
“No-one can go to the scene; we have to close it off until the forensics and photographer have completed their work,” Amelia said compassionately.
“Yes, that’s correct. Do you have a photograph of your husband; it will help us with our enquiries. Thank you for your time Mrs Brown and we hope Reggie will turn up soon, but if we hear anything meantime will get in touch,” Jake said reassuringly.
“Thank you, I do hope the body is not Reggie, I mean he could be a right cad sometimes but I wouldn’t be without the old goat,” she squeaked.
When Jake got out of the gate, he turned to Amelia and said he knew it was Reggie, and he just had a bad feeling about it.
“What makes you be so sure that it is Reggie Brown?” Amelia asked with a shudder.
“One, when she mentioned the Forum, secondly I sense it,” Jake uttered.
“Oh you mean this weird hunch, sixth sense thing,” Amelia said shuddering again. “I feel like someone has walked over my grave.”
“Yes if you want to call it that, but it works for me and I know it’s Reggie Brown,” Jake exclaimed.
“You don’t think that he was living a secret life indulging in a bit of kinky sex and went a bit far, forgetting the secret word for saying stop, before he suffocated,” Amelia said.
“No I think it was staged to look like that, could even be our Swap Skills Killer, as Reggie was a volunteer for the Forum, he might have used the Forum services, so we had better check Reggie’s name on the swap database,” Jake said.
“Yes that is a bit too much of a co-incidence, isn’t it?” Amelia replied.
“Come on, let us go and see Rachel and find out more about this Reggie, whether he is th
e kind of bloke into kinky sex and such like, we have to pass that way to get back to the nick,” Amelia said.
When they arrived at the Forum, about 2pm, the car boot stalls were just packing away. Jake saw Rachel and his mother packing their goods into boxes and plonking them into the boot of the car.
“Hey Jake what are you doing here, you’re a bit late they are all packing away. It’s been a good day though, and we’ve done well for the Forum Christmas party fund,” Rachel said.
“Sorry Rachel but it’s not a social visit Amelia and I are still on duty.” He got the photograph out of his pocket and showed her it. “Do you know this man Rachel?” Jake commanded.
“Why, yes, it’s one of our volunteers, Reggie Brown. He was due to do a car boot today so his wife said, but it happens he did a runner the other night. Did not come home from the pub and his wife rang me up asking whether he had come into work,” Rachel gushed.
“Is he the kind of person do you think that was into sadistic sex and such like?” Jake added.
Rachel sniggered. “What Reggie, you must be joking, he doesn’t look that type, straight as they come, he is,” Rachel replied.
“Okay. Thanks for your time. We have to be off now,” Jake said and turned to walk away.
She took stock of what he said and shouted after him. “Wait a minute Jake Hammond do not belittle me by thinking you can come here asking questions and not tell me why,” Rachel spouted.
“Listen Rachel, it’s a bit sensitive, and if any of this gets out,” Jake replied.
“Now Jake, don’t insult my intelligence, I know you’re a cop and it would jeopardize your job if I opened my trap. You know I won’t say anything, I just want to know why you are asking about Reggie,” Rachel blathered.
“Because we have a body, male, dumped on the Horncastle Road. No identification yet.” Jake said.
“Well, you have a photo of Reggie, surely you can see whether it’s him or not,” Rachel aired.