by Rebecca Tope
‘He told us it was. We’re fairly sure it was Ricky Whiteacre who hit him.’
‘Uncle Jack doesn’t know who’s who. He’s never bothered to learn anyone’s name or ask them what they want. He’s always been on the defensive, ever since his dad died. He thinks everyone’s talking about him and out to get him. Those hens of his – he knows it’s wrong. And selling that field was deliberate provocation. The whole village was against him doing it. But those aren’t things we get concerned about.’
‘He knows you, though.’
Steve nodded. ‘Only because I was at school with his boys and spent half my time on his farm. That was when he was milking. Ages ago now.’
‘So what are you saying? You think it wasn’t Ricky?’
‘Ricky Whiteacre is a law unto himself. He’s not properly with us, never comes to the meetings.’
‘His father knows it was him. We heard them talking. You’re just trying to keep me from knowing the truth. Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it? Jack’s going to tell the police it was Ricky. Even if he doesn’t know names, he can describe them. He said there was a gang of girls pushing and punching him.’
‘All I know is it wasn’t Tiffany or Nella or Sophie.’
‘So they tell me.’
‘It’s true. Nella and Sophie can both prove they were nowhere near that field. So can Tiffany, come to that. She was at home. If you must know, that was the phone call I got. Sophie was calling to ask if I was coming or not. I was late, see.’
She nodded slowly. ‘But you’d already stopped by that gateway. You’d seen Jack and were horrified. That’s why I stopped – the look on your face.’
‘Right. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing, I suppose. Except – why were you there, at that very spot, and just the right moment? And then it still strikes me as very odd the way you disappeared – as if you didn’t want to get involved with the police.’
‘Right,’ he repeated. ‘What’s surprising about that? We’re not on good terms with the cops. And, as I told you already, I didn’t see there was anything I could do. There were two of you, and that girl seemed pretty capable.’
‘My daughter. She’s a police officer.’
‘Yes, you said at the time. So why would you need me?’
‘Didn’t you care about him? He’s a relative, isn’t he?’
‘Distant cousin. What can I say? I didn’t think he was badly hurt.’
‘I’m still confused. Who were those people, then? Why would they attack him like that?’
‘As you just said, he can tell us himself, now he’s woken up. Someone’s going to get a knock on their door – if they haven’t already.’
‘The assumption is it’s most likely to be revenge for the death of Danny Compton,’ she said. ‘Everyone seems to think Jack Handy killed him.’
Steve said nothing for a minute, simply staring thoughtfully at the road beyond his car. Then he forced an artificial cough, as if the silence had to be filled somehow. ‘Everyone liked Danny,’ he said after another minute. ‘He was everyone’s friend. Willing, cheerful, capable. All the girls fell for him.’
‘And he chose Nella,’ Thea nodded, thinking the bony, sharp-spoken young woman was an unlikely selection.
‘He did. They were mad about each other. They were getting married.’
‘I don’t suppose I’ve seen her at her best.’ Then she remembered that when she first saw Nella and the others on Saturday, nobody knew Danny was dead. She tried in vain to recall her first impression of the dead man’s fiancée. ‘I heard Tiffany saying that Danny was dragging his heels about a date for the wedding and Nella was cross about it.’
‘What man doesn’t drag his feet in that situation?’ Steve laughed. ‘He was just being sensible. They didn’t have anywhere to live, for a start. And there was something weird about his parents. He left home very young and hardly ever saw them – something like that.’
‘Must have had some money, though – with that nice car.’
‘Yeah. We did wonder about that. He said he got it at a massive discount somewhere. Never did hear the full story. We used it for off-road operations. S’pose there’ll be no more of that now. Unless Nella gets to inherit it.’
‘So you believe your distant cousin Jack bashed him on the head and tipped him into the quarry, then?’ she persisted.
He shook his head heavily. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Better people than me say he did, so they’re probably right. After all, it wouldn’t have taken much to provoke him.’
‘Wouldn’t Danny have resisted, fought back, left scratches or bruises?’
‘Who says he didn’t? What do you know of the details?’
She smiled ruefully. ‘Not much. They know for sure it wasn’t an accident. I think Higgins said he was bashed on the head before being thrown into the quarry.’
He gave her a startled stare. ‘That wasn’t it,’ he said. ‘I thought it was common knowledge.’
‘What?’
‘He was stabbed.’
‘No! Who told you that?’ She was furious at her own ignorance, at Higgins having wilfully withheld the fact, even suggesting something quite different, whilst apparently telling all sorts of other people the real truth of the matter. ‘And don’t tell me your brother works at the local mortuary.’
He laughed. ‘Not quite. It was the chap who found the body on Sunday. He tweeted about it, damn fool. There was a lot of blood. Somebody in the group retweeted it, Sophie saw it and told some of us.’
‘Did she tell Nella?’
‘I doubt it, but she might have done. I’m trying to tell you – I’m not part of the inner circle. None of them’s my best mate.’
She frowned at him. ‘And yet you were right there, in Bagendon, monitoring the police radio, on Sunday. I saw you myself.’
‘And I saw you,’ he said loudly. ‘I thought at the time you were trouble, and I turned out to be right, didn’t I?’
‘How am I trouble?’ she asked, in all innocence. ‘Did I disrupt some horrible plan?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’ He heaved a profound sigh. ‘Sorry. But just by being here, you’re causing trouble. Nobody knows where you’ll pop up next, or which of your copper friends you’ll have trailing after you. Even your bloody daughter is one of them.’
‘She is. Not that I ever encouraged her. It gets worse – my brother-in-law’s a detective superintendent. And I’m quite matey with another of them, in this region. Luckily for you, she’s on holiday.’ She gave a wry laugh. ‘I’m sort of on your side, you know. I mean, I agree with a lot of your aims.’
‘Big deal,’ he grumbled, which increased her sneaking liking for him. A solid young man, with large hands and hair the colour of oak furniture, he had a wit and integrity that had taken a while to recognise.
Again he gazed off down the drive, seeming to conjure a slow-moving, silver-coloured car approaching from the west. The driver was shamelessly peering up at the house, in an attitude that Thea was beginning to find annoying. The twisted neck and hunched shoulders that were necessary to see through the passenger window exemplified an excessive level of intrusion. Even Thea at her most nosy had never done it.
‘It’s Sheila Whiteacre,’ she noted. ‘Again. Hasn’t she got better things to do than keep snooping up here? She did it on Monday, as well.’
‘Sheila’s all right,’ he said softly. ‘So long as she’s on the same side. She’s got a lot of influence.’
‘Oh, damn it.’ The woman had pulled her car awkwardly behind Steve’s and was getting out. She waved cheerfully, which reminded Thea that their last encounter had led to a very uncomfortable piece of knowledge about her son. The two waited on their seat for the newcomer to come closer.
‘Just thought I’d ask how you got on with that dog,’ Sheila chirped, when she was a few yards away. ‘Did you find the farm all right?’
‘No problem. Mrs Handy showed me round.’ There were undercurrents in operation that could take
them into all kinds of deep water. Tiffany’s hostility; Ricky’s misdeeds; Sheila’s own uninvited appearance – they were all potential areas of conflict.
‘Oh good. Hi, Steve,’ she greeted him fondly. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’
Another possible minefield opened up – had Sheila stopped because she’d spotted Steve, and wanted to check up on what was being said? Something guarded in his eyes suggested this might be the case. ‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Look – I have to go over to Bagendon,’ Thea said firmly. ‘I’m not being paid to sit about and chat like this.’
They both looked at her in astonishment. ‘Aren’t you?’ said Sheila. ‘I’d have thought this is exactly what they want from you. Better than getting yourself embroiled in local trouble that you understand nothing about.’
Here we go, thought Thea. ‘You mean, I should shut myself away in here and ignore everything going on outside?’ Anger was slowly building somewhere in her chest. ‘All I did was go for a walk on Saturday, you know. Tiffany and Sophie were in the little wood, and it seemed entirely natural to have a little chat with them.’
Sheila let her shoulders drop in an attitude of exasperation. She breathed out slowly. ‘And then you cadged a lift off Jack Handy. After that, you went back again and pushed into a group of people you didn’t know. You just keep turning up, time after time, don’t you? You’re like a witch. Or a bad fairy.’
‘A jinx,’ muttered Steve.
‘Or a spy,’ Sheila finished. ‘Deliberately informing the police about everything you hear us say.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Thea shouted. ‘That’s all absolute nonsense. I had no idea your protest group even existed until I came here. Sophie told me a whole lot about it, five minutes after I first met her. If you’re worried about spies, maybe you should tell her to keep her mouth shut.’
‘She thought you might make a likely recruit,’ Steve explained. ‘She’s always on the lookout for new people.’
Thea got up. ‘Well, tell her she’s useless as a recruiting officer. She comes across as borderline insane. Now, I do have to get on. The morning’s half gone already.’ Part of her regretted the curtailment of the conversation, but a larger part was eager to be done with it. ‘Thanks for putting me straight, Steve,’ she added with some irony. It would take a good deal of hard thinking before she could truthfully say she was any closer to understanding what had been going on.
‘He put you straight, did he?’ Sheila said sharply. ‘How, exactly?’
‘Never mind,’ said Steve. ‘If you move your car, I can go. We can’t stay if she doesn’t want us here.’ Again, Thea pegged him as essentially decent, although evidently not entirely law-abiding, given his eavesdropping on police radio exchanges. She would have liked longer to try to assess his character and motives. A murder had been committed, after all – and anybody with a strong arm and sufficient reason might have done it.
Chapter Twenty
The two cars manoeuvred away and Thea was left feeling overwrought and slightly foolish. She wasn’t actually in any rush to get to Bagendon. It was perfectly pleasant here at Galanthus House in the spring sunshine, the dogs pottering idly back and forth, birds singing on all sides. Instead of setting off across the countryside, she could bring the tortoise out into the warmth and hope he stirred from his slumbers. She was more and more eager to meet him … her … whatever it was. She had never been on close acquaintance with a tortoise before.
Acting on the idea, she carefully carried the tank from the back of the garage. It was much heavier than she’d expected, and she had not planned in advance where to put it, so she simply plonked it down on the ground just outside the garage door. It contained almost a foot of dense soil, which obviously weighed quite a lot, she realised belatedly. She didn’t think she would be able to lift it back onto its original shelf, which was rather a worry. No way could it stay outside all night, getting cold and vulnerable to passing predators. Did foxes eat tortoises, she wondered? A badger might well have a try, if it detected something alive inside the tank. More than that, she would have to be careful not to drive into it when she got the car out. ‘What an idiot,’ she muttered. She would have to find somebody to help her put it back, before the end of the day. From recent experience, she had good reason to hope a likely assistant would turn up before very long.
Meanwhile it was definitely time for more coffee. It would help her to think, which felt like a fairly urgent priority. Impressions, hunches, suspicions were all snaking around inside her head, thanks to Steve and his ‘setting her straight’. Nothing was remotely straight any more – even the few facts she had believed to be fully established now felt rocky and fragile. Somewhere deep inside all the talk was a core detail or connection that might explain the whole business.
Her phone had to trill for several seconds before she grasped the import of the sound. She had left it in the kitchen, next to the sink, and was a million miles from expecting a call. Jessica, she thought with a stab of anxiety.
But it wasn’t Jessica. ‘Hello? It’s me,’ said a welcome voice. ‘Sorry about last night. I’ve got a quiet half hour, with any luck. How about you?’
‘All the time in the world,’ she said, with a sensation of sinking into a deep feather bed, far away from the world and its worries.
He told her about his stressful evening, dealing with a damaged child. ‘He’s asleep now. They said he should take the rest of the week off school.’
‘But how will you manage? Can you still do funerals?’
‘Just about. There’s one later today, and another tomorrow. Timmy can stay indoors while I do them. He’ll be able to see me from the window. I’ll rig up a signal system, so he can let me know if anything happens.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ she said doubtfully. What if the child fell, or blacked out? He wouldn’t manage to send a signal then.
‘He’ll be okay. It’s only for half an hour or so, each time. Tell me what you’ve been doing.’
‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you I went to see your house.’ She’d almost forgotten about Broad Campden. ‘It’s looking a bit sad.’
‘But it still has a roof?’
‘Oh, yes. But it seems such a terrible waste, Drew. It’s worth a small fortune, and you know you could do with the money.’
‘I can’t just sell it.’ He sounded horrified. ‘What would happen to the field, if I did that?’
‘I have no idea, but you ought to find out what the precise legal position is. As far as I can see, you’ve satisfied the original condition, and it’s up to you what you do with it now.’
‘It’s not that simple. I just need to … get myself a bit straighter. Now there’s this uncertainty about Maggs as well, I have to wait and see how that goes. She can’t make any firm commitments for a year or more, the way things are.’
‘That’s a long time.’
‘I know. Change the subject. How’s the murder going?’
She gave him a disjointed summary of events since they last spoke, adding points out of sequence, as she remembered them. It took almost five minutes.
‘I can’t throw much light on any of that,’ he said. ‘Most of it seems obvious, on the face of it. Local residents fed up with the activists, to the point where one of them stabbed a leading member and threw him into a quarry. Possibly on the spur of the moment. Maybe just came across him by chance and took the opportunity.’
‘Not many people carry a knife big enough to kill someone with.’
‘Farmers do. They’re always having to cut baler twine or brambles or something.’
‘I’m cross that Higgins never said anything about there being a knife. I’m sure he told me it was a bash on the head. A knife seems much nastier somehow.’
‘They are. Did I tell you about the time when I—’
‘You did. I know how you feel about knives. Anyway, the good news is that Jack Handy can speak for himself, so they’ll know by now who it was who attacked him.’
‘It still feels like a case of revenge,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Maggs said something, years ago, that I’ve never forgotten. It keeps coming back to me.’
‘What?’
‘“We fear those we hurt”. It’s obvious when you think about it, but I don’t think people take it into account enough. Like me, with that nursing home. I’m scared stiff they’ll find a way to get back at me. It’s the reason why revenge is such a powerful thing – it has a sort of inevitability to it, even for the victim. Because the victim was the perpetrator as well. It’s symmetrical. Balanced. Half expected. You need to find out what that Danny did to somebody in particular. It feels more personal to me than what you’ve been saying.’
‘We know he annoyed any number of locals. Probably threatened their livelihoods in some cases. Isn’t that enough?’
‘It might be, yes. But there must be a reason why it was him and not one of the others. And maybe the quarry is significant in some way. Quite often the place is important, as well as the means of doing the killing.’
‘I expect the protest group regards the quarry as some kind of desecration of the countryside. It is, after all, even though it’s been there for decades, at least. There are quarries all over the place, going back to the Middle Ages. How else could they build all these lovely houses?’
‘It’s just a thought,’ he said mildly.
‘Sorry. Was I shouting?’
‘A bit.’
She laughed. ‘It’s a bad sign when I do that. Shows I’ve got myself emotionally involved – again. Every time, I resolve to just stay quietly in the background, ignoring all the goings-on around me. But it never works.’
‘Of course it doesn’t. How boring would that be?’
‘Right. You know – the Steve person who was here just now – he seemed to understand. I rather liked him. He said everybody liked Danny, as well.’
Drew let that lie, and followed another thought. ‘When’s the funeral? Danny’s, I mean. They should be releasing the body about now.’
‘No idea. His parents can’t be bothered to come, apparently, so it’s all down to Nella. Does a fiancée count as kin?’