by Keith Finney
"I've been in once, remember. That was enough." Fitch began to shuffle backwards until he bumped into Ant and let out a shriek in terror.
Ant gently pushed his friend forward and shook his head.
"Don’t be daft. He’s dead. What do you think he’s going to do? Sit up and ask you how much you charge for a full service? Anyway, since you dragged me away from watching the football, tell me again just how you ended up in the middle of nowhere with a dead bloke?"
Fitch turned his back on the container, after having one last peek at the lumpy, white shroud at the far end of the dark space.
"Well, I got a call to fix a diesel generator."
"From a bloke you’d never heard of, saying he’d pay a hundred and fifty pounds cash, which you'd find under an oil drum inside the generator room, right?"
You might well blush.
"I know it sounds daft, but I thought it was easy money for an hour's work."
Ant listened in disbelief as Fitch retold the events that had brought him to the back end of Brinton Fen on a sticky Thursday afternoon.
"Daft? That’s putting it mildly. Anyway, how did you come to poke your nose in the container?"
Fitch turned and pointed to a shabby brick building twenty yards to their left.
"I turned up and followed the bloke’s instructions. Sure enough, I found the generator—and my money. I got stuck in and soon found a couple of loose connections. That’s all there was to it. I cleaned up the leads, tightened them, and switched her on."
Ant waited for more.
"And then what?"
"What do you mean? It started, of course. What did you expect?"
Ant pointed towards the container.
"And the corpse?"
He noticed Fitch shudder at the mention of the body.
"A bit of bad luck, really."
You're telling me.
"Bad luck? At least you’re still breathing, unlike your friend covered in a white sheet, surrounded by two-dozen boxes of frozen peas in a big tin box with wonky wiring."
From Fitch's reaction, Ant guessed his friend was trying to think of anything but dead people.
"Assuming the job was done, I started to make my way back to the van when I saw a red light flashing on the side of the container and heard an alarm sounding."
Ant gestured towards the container.
"And curiosity got the better of you?"
Oops, touched his sensibilities there.
"It’s not a case of curiosity. I’m a professional, I am. There was no alarm before I fixed the generator. There was one after I switched it on. I figured the freezer temperature monitor needed resetting, and I was right."
Ant scanned the side of the container for the control panel. Unable to see it, he turned to Fitch, who was wearing a wry smile.
"No, it's inside, which is how I came to find—"
"Simon the stiff."
Fitch frowned.
"If you say so."
Ant grinned, pleased at his own joke.
"Talking of whom, Fitch, we’d better have a look at the frozen one, then get the hell out of here. I wager the man who hired you won't be too pleased if he finds out we know what’s in here."
Fitch once more began to step away from the corrugated steel doors.
"I’ve told you. I’m not going in there again. Seeing the anaemic soles of that bloke’s feet last time was enough for me."
Gesturing for his friend to stand aside, Ant stepped into the container and gently pulled back a sheet covering the body.
"Good Lord. It’s Geoff Singleton."
11
Parallel Universe
"Are you sure this is a good idea?"
Ant looked over his shoulder at Lyn as he rinsed his empty coffee cup under the hot tap.
"Listen, Fitch was the one that started this caper. If he hadn’t been so keen to earn a bit of cash in hand, we wouldn’t need to explain anything to 'Inspector Clouseau of Witless Yard.'"
Ant's parody of Riley speaking in a fake French accent was enough to make Lyn choke on her drink.
"Not bad for you, Anthony Stanton. Not bad at all," she said, wiping a dribble of coffee from her chin.
"And what has the corpse-finder general had to say on the matter?"
Ant could see Fitch still looked unsettled from his afternoon's work.
"Not funny, Ant."
Lyn sympathised by putting an arm around her friend.
"Never you mind the nasty aristocrat. I'm on your side. It must have been a nasty shock. But can I just ask if you managed to bring any of those peas back, only I'm a bit short."
Get in there, girl.
Having lulled Fitch into a false sense of security, Lyn's apparent afterthought did the trick. All three broke into a chorus of laughter, compounded by Ant spending the following few minutes prancing around Lyn’s farmhouse kitchen doing a terrible impersonation of Peter Sellers as the famous French detective, while Lyn took on the mantle of Kato Fong, his faithful retainer, by leaping from various hiding places to demonstrate his martial arts skills on his employer.
"Where did you to learn that?" said Ant as he nursed a sore wrist from Lyn having twisted it during one of her more successful attacks.
Lyn smiled enigmatically.
"A girl can't be too careful these days, so I've been attending Cybil Dawson’s self-defence classes for women. Two pounds seventy-five a session including ginger-nut biscuits and orange squash."
Ant huffed.
"Cybil Dawson? She’s seventy-five if she's a day, and limps around the village leaning on a barley-twist walking stick,"
I knew it; Lyn has gone mad.
Lyn stepped slowly forward and smiled as she took hold of Ant’s left hand. Confused, he smiled back, before wincing in pain as she applied one of Cybil's special restraint techniques for repelling unwanted advances.
The more Ant cried out, the more pressure Lyn applied, until he dropped to his knees and pleaded for mercy.
"Nothing to do with age or strength come to that," said Lyn as she towered above her adversary. "As a matter of fact, Cybil took down a pickpocket in London last summer. He made the mistake of confusing infirmity with vulnerability."
"And…" said Fitch, who had been consoling himself scoffing a piece of Lyn’s renowned lemon cheesecake.
"Three days in hospital with a broken arm and three months in prison for aggravated assault," replied Lyn without taking a breath.
"Who, the pickpocket, or Cybil?" replied Ant, confused and still smarting from a painful wrist.
"Funny," replied Lyn while giving Ant a sideways glance.
"I’m being seri—"
His protest was cut short by the sound of the doorbell.
"He's here," said Fitch.
Lyn broke off the conversation and headed for the front door.
"And don't say anything you know I will have a go at you later for." Ant watched Fitch frown, his confusion obvious. "Oh, don't look so daft. Just don't tell Riley anything he doesn't need to know, yes?"
Saints preserve us all.
The pair listened intently as Lyn went through the pleasantries of welcoming Riley and bidding him to follow her into the kitchen.
"Finding the same body twice. That’s a record, even for you."
Ant's natural instinct was to challenge Riley’s sarcastic comment, except he’d promised Lyn to be on his best behaviour.
The unlikely foursome sat around Lyn’s rectangular dining table in a seating configuration that made it plain it was three against one.
"As I said, Detective Inspector, strictly speaking, it wasn’t me who found Geoff Singleton’s body, it was my friend here."
Riley’s eyes turned toward Fitch, who wriggled on the hard seat as if he had ants in his pants.
"I don’t know what else I can tell you?" said Fitch. "I went to fix a generator, saw a red light flashing and opened the container doors, and there it… I mean he, was."
Fitch shrugged his shoulders and looked an
ywhere except at the detective.
Riley scrutinised each of the friends in turn, lingering longest on Ant. After what seemed an age, the detective sat back in his chair.
"The police service thanks you for bringing this matter to its attention. I think that will be all for now."
Riley got to his feet.
Something not right here. What's he up to?
Ant attempted to draw Riley out.
"So what’s next, Detective Inspector?"
Riley looked down at Ant.
"Next?"
You know what I mean, fool.
"It means we get the post-mortem done before some light-fingered villain nicks the body again. You don't get any prizes for finding him a third time. Unless, of course you'd like some jail time?"
Ant sensed an opportunity to wind his foe up.
"What, you mean like that bloke who Cybil Dawson took down with her barley-twist walking stick in London?"
Ant adopted a look of faux horror.
"London? Walking Stick? And who on earth is Cybil Dawson?" replied Riley in a tone tinged with exasperation.
"Don’t mind my friend," said Lyn. "He’s been on the chocolate, which makes him stupid until the e-numbers wear off."
Ant noted Lyn’s indifference as he attempted to stare the detective out, who, to his disappointment, soon tired of Ant’s provocation.
"As a matter of fact, it’s happening right now, and I’m confident it will prove Mr Singleton died from natural causes. I’m sure you are aware he had a serious health condition?"
Lyn opened her mouth as if to speak. Ant anticipated what was coming next and tapped her shin under the table.
Lyn jumped in surprise, drawing a bemused look from Riley.
"Were you about to say something, or is it your habit to make random sounds for no apparent reason?"
Lyn bit her lip to take her mind off the pain.
I'll pay for that.
"Good riddance to him, I say," said Fitch as Lyn closed the front door and made her way back into the kitchen.
"You two are nuts; you know that, don’t you? One of these days Riley’s going to get you."
Ant laughed.
"He’s too stupid."
Lyn tossed an apple at Ant from a bowl of fruit on the worktop.
"Not so stupid that you were worried over what I was about to say to him."
Ant executed a nifty sidestep to his left allowing the Norfolk Royal to whizz past his shoulder and bounce off the bread bin onto the floor.
"If you mean hand him information on a plate, you’re correct."
Lyn huffed.
"Anyway, who’s for another coffee?"
"Good move, Ant," said Fitch as he handed over his empty mug.
Lyn giggled as she watched Ant trying to work out how the percolator worked. Round one went to the machine, causing Ant to leave the room in a huff on the pretext of retrieving something from his car.
Fitch took the opportunity to quiz Lyn.
"How are things between you two? I’m guessing all this shin kicking and apple throwing is displacement activity for, you know, getting it together?"
Fitch’s perceptive comments took Lyn by surprise.
"What on earth do you mean?"
Fitch walked over to the percolator and prepared it for a fresh brew before switching the machine on.
"Come off it. I know I’m a bloke, but even I can see what’s going on… or rather, what’s not going on."
"Who’s not doing what?" said Ant as he re-entered the room holding a small screwdriver.
Fitch brushed Ant’s enquiry aside, advising his friend he had no need of the screwdriver.
"How did you do that?" asked Ant as he glimpsed the red "on" light of the percolator, forgetting about his earlier question.
"I pressed the button marked ‘on.’ It's not complicated, you know."
Ant peered at the machine as if it had conspired with the others to make him look stupid.
"Come and sit down," said Lyn, holding out her hand.
Ant surprised himself by gently taking Lyn’s fingers while lowering himself onto a chair next to her.
"Here’s what I think about the body snatcher. It seems to me that there are only two possibilities, assuming we dismiss the notion Geoff died of natural causes."
"Go on," said Ant, keen to see if her assessment matched his own.
"Well, either Hannah arranged it to stop his corpse being cut up—"
"Or?" interrupted Ant.
"Or whoever murdered him stole the body to stop the post-mortem unearthing how they killed him."
"Exactly," added Lyn, her face beaming as she realised they agreed for once.
"And that person looks to be Jakub Baros, Lyn, yes?"
Fitch reached for the percolator and poured three coffees.
"Of course, the two could be linked," said Fitch.
Ant gestured for another sugar to be dropped into his coffee.
"That’s what I've just said."
Ant wiped coffee splashes from his wrist as the sugar cube Fitch had released landed with a plop.
"No, you mentioned two people with different motives, Ant. How about if Hannah’s apparent terror of her old flame is an act, and they’re actually in it together?"
Ant smiled.
"Interesting. In that case it's worth me doing some digging around this Jakub fellow."
"And I’ll have a chat with Hannah after school tomorrow to see if she gives anything away."
12
Old MacDonald
"Thank goodness that's it for another week. This term always feels the longest," said Lyn as she followed Hannah into her large rear garden. "You’re nice and secluded here, that’s for sure. Good to hide away from the world sometimes, isn’t it?"
Lyn’s line of conversation wasn’t meant to offer any deep insight into the merits of privacy. Her intention was to get her to talk.
Wish I could read your thoughts.
Hannah looked pensive as they settled into a pair of matching faux bamboo chairs protected from the strong sunlight by a huge parasol.
"It’s good of you to spend so much of your time with me." She spoke in a quiet voice, without making eye contact with Lyn, who rested a reassuring hand on Hannah’s arm.
"Not at all. I can’t begin to understand what you’re going through, so I won’t use the silly words most people splutter because they don’t know what to say."
Hannah smiled and stole a look at Lyn from beneath her auburn fringe.
"You have a very important job, I think. Many responsibilities for all those little children."
Lyn returned the smile, pleased that Hannah was beginning to open up.
"Oh, I don’t know. I have a good team of teachers and support staff. The place runs itself really. As for the children, well, they’re fine. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for some of the parents."
Hannah wagged a playful finger.
"I think you are too modest."
Lyn tried not to blush.
"I’m not sure some of the parents share that view, but we all rub along together somehow."
Hannah began to frown then relaxed as she processed Lyn’s line of self-deprecation.
"Ah, one of your strange English sayings, ‘rub along.' Yes, I understand."
Lyn’s approach was starting to pay dividends. Hannah's body language was more open now. Instinctively, Lyn mirrored it.
Time to push, I think.
"Has the detective been in touch recently?"
Hannah’s smile slipped as the outside world started to once more intrude.
"No, but the, how you say, liaison officer, has. She has told me about Geoff. It is horrible, but I understand they have to find out how he died."
Lyn decided not to ask if Hannah knew the exact details of where her husband’s body was found. She saw no need to add to her misery.
"You’re right. Knowing what actually happened will help you eventually. We can deal with things we know about. It
’s uncertainty that is the hardest thing to bear, isn't it?"
Hannah nodded then stood up and headed for the kitchen door.
"I have some wonderful fruit cordial. A recipe my mother taught me back in Poland. I will fetch some."
Keep yourself busy, that's the ticket.
She returned a few minutes later with two glass tumblers filled to the brim with a colourful liquid.
"Hmm, that’s superb, Hannah." Lyn licked her lips as she sampled the iced drink.
"We always made it on hot days. It was one of Geoff’s favourites."
Lyn remained silent, instead, allowing the stillness of the afternoon to do its work.
"You think something bad happened to my husband, don’t you?"
Better get this reply right.
"The truth is, Hannah, no one knows. But yes, it’s a possibility, no matter what the police say."
Hannah nodded as she lowered her head into her hands.
Go on, give yourself permission to think the unthinkable.
"So it’s important we go on until we get to the truth, no matter where it takes us. That way we're doing it for Geoff. Isn’t that right, Hannah?"
A few seconds of inactivity was broken by a nod of the head. It was enough for Lyn to know Hannah understood.
"Have you heard anything from Jakub?"
Lyn waited for Hannah to react. It wasn’t long coming. As she raised her head, she stiffened and stared into the middle distance.
"Do you think he did this terrible thing? He shouted at Geoff very much when we came away."
Lyn searched for the right words to move the conversation forward, trying to sound positive.
"Ant is looking for him right now, but if you can be brave enough to tell me a bit more about the man, it might just make the difference when Ant, or the police, catch up with him."
Hannah remained silent. Lyn tried a different tack.
"Tell me about when you were both young. When you first met. He was your first real boyfriend, wasn’t he?"
Hannah eventually warmed to Lyn’s enquiry. Her words stirred long-lost memories of happier times.
"Annabelle told you, didn’t she?" said Hannah. "It’s okay, yes, they were good times. It was so exciting. You know, the first time a boy kisses you."