by Nick Oldham
Then he made sense of what he was seeing.
There was a dark, black shape amongst the debris on the floor. The shape of a horse which had been burned to a frazzle.
Henry stepped back, shocked, but said nothing. He turned away and caught a gulp of fresh air amongst the rising smoke. His head slowly revolved back. He eyed Jane, who stood there impassively.
‘There’s another dead horse in the next stable,’ she said, matter of fact.
Henry checked himself to get a grip. He had seen numerous dead bodies during the course of his career, but they had been human beings – exclusively – with the exception of a few dog accidents he’d reported during his time as a probationer PC in uniform, over twenty-five years earlier. He had seen bodies dismembered, blown to bits, drowned, shot, knifed, you name it, he’d dealt with it. But the sight and stench of a roasted horse was actually making him queasy. What was it about horses? he thought. He did not even like the beasts.
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘They got the other horses out in time, released them into a field.’
‘Anyone, any person hurt?’
‘No.’
‘Arson, then?’
‘Very perceptive.’
‘I’m sharp like that. Used to be a detective.’
‘The best,’ Jane said under her breath.
Henry did not quite catch it. ‘Eh?’
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly, covering her tracks. ‘Anyway,’ she coughed, ‘the burned-down buildings and the horse steaks are not everything. Come here.’
She took him across the stable yard, treading carefully over the hosepipes.
It was truly morning now. The sun was squinting in the sky. Things could be seen very clearly now with the fresh, raw light of that time of day. Henry surveyed the devastation the fire had wrought. His upper lips curled in distaste. He was beginning to feel that anger which had often driven him in the past. The anger born of the belief that no one should be allowed to get away with such crimes. It was an emotion that had often spurred him on when he had been a ‘real’ detective. Now that his status had changed, it did not mean that the anger and drive was any less within him.
Jane Roscoe was a few feet ahead of him. She was dressed in a very practical trouser suit that did little for her. Henry experienced a sudden pang of something in the pit of his tummy he could not quite explain. All he knew was that it was linked to the affair he and Jane had been conducting.
She went to a stable door, stopped and faced Henry. ‘I could see you were affected by the dead horse.’ He did not deny it. ‘There’s a mutilated horse in here,’ she declared.
‘Someone seems to have a downer on the Wicksons,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘It’s not nice. You don’t have to see it if you don’t want.’
‘Let’s do it,’ he said bravely.
Seconds later he wished he hadn’t been so bold.
A truck from the local knacker’s yard was reversing into the stables when Henry and Jane reappeared from the loose box. They watched as the two thick-set men in blood-stained overalls ran chunky chains around the corpse of the horse in the burned-out stable next to the tack room.
‘How much of an interest will the police be taking in the plight of the Wickson’s now?’ he asked.
She yawned. ‘Some, I suppose.’
‘I take it this isn’t the first job you’ve been to tonight?’
‘No – a serious wounding in Blackpool, an iffy suicide in Lytham and another bad assault in Fleetwood.’
‘Busy night.’
‘Normal night.’
‘I’m envious.’
‘Don’t be – it’s generally shite I get turned out to. Thick, poor people, hurting other thick, poor people. Or, as in this case, hurting thick, rich people.’
‘You’ve become a cynic.’
‘You made me into one, Henry.’ She turned to him, sorrow in her eyes. ‘I thought love could see anyone through anything.’
He was stumped.
‘I was wrong, wasn’t I?’ she said simply and walked away.
Behind him, the stable door opened and Charlotte Wickson, Tara’s daughter, emerged, together with the vet who had been treating the horse. Charlotte was tearful and deeply upset because it was her horse, Chopin, her own, her very own. And someone had violated him again. He had already had an ear severed. Now this torture.
‘He’ll be all right, won’t he?’ she said to the vet.
‘Yes, he will, but he’s going to need a lot of care and attention from now on. The wounds will heal. He’ll never see again through that eye – but he’ll be able to get used to that, eventually, though I would not recommend jumping any more. It’s the psychological damage that’ll take time to heal. Do you think you can give him all the love and attention he needs?’
Charlotte nodded bravely.
‘I’ll be back later in the day to remove that eye under anaesthetic. I’ll call in to see your mother before I go,’ the vet said, nodded sharply at Henry and ambled across the yard.
Henry heard Charlotte emit a long, stuttering sigh.
‘How you doing?’ he asked her.
‘Shit,’ she said, startling him. ‘He’s a mess, isn’t he?’
‘Yep.’ Henry could not actually shake the vivid image of the injured horse from out of his mind. The slashes, the cuts, the fear in the eyes. ‘So what’s this all about?’ he asked Charlotte.
The young girl shrugged, her eyes slitting momentarily in a gesture Henry had seen on hundreds of people in the past. It made him become alert, because he had not expected it from her. It meant she knew something, or had some idea.
‘Who do you think did this?’
‘How would I know?’ Her voice contained a trace of irritation. ‘There’s hundreds of suspects out there,’ she said with a sneer. ‘Fucking hundreds – including me.’ She pushed her way past Henry and hurried towards the house. Henry was tempted to give chase, but refrained. She could wait till later.
Jane Roscoe was standing on the other side of the yard, observing the interaction with interest. Henry mooched across to her, hands thrust deep in his jeans pockets.
‘How much time are the police going to dedicate to these particular crimes?’ Henry persisted.
‘How much time would you, Henry? Some wooden buildings have been burned down, a couple of dumb horses have been killed, another one cut to ribbons. No one’s been hurt. I have a desk full of unsolved crimes which are performance indicators and this one isn’t. I’ll refer it to the Arson Team and let them get on with it.’
‘It’ll get a good half hour, then?’
‘If they’re lucky.’
‘In that case, it won’t hurt very much if I do some snooping around on behalf of the family.’
‘You are very misguided, Henry. If I were you, I’d leave it be. The Wickson family are a pretty sad bunch––’
‘How do you know?’ Now she had alerted his senses.
Her eyes went very snake-like. ‘I just do,’ she said in a tone that left Henry in no doubt: Don’t push it, is what she was saying.
‘I haven’t seen John Wickson, husband and father,’ Henry said. ‘Is he knocking about?’
‘Away on business, but on his way back now, I believe.’
Henry and Jane regarded each other. His nostrils were filled with the smell of burnt wood and flesh. Neither spoke even though both of them knew there was a great deal of unfinished business between them. Despite Henry’s urge to delve into her feelings, he held back, not wanting to go down there and relight the flames he had well and truly doused months before.
‘Any news on the inquest? Trial? My discipline hearing?’ he asked instead, hoping to steer the conversation away from anything connected with their emotional entanglement to a subject which he knew was equally controversial. He should not have been surprised when she said, ‘You know I can’t talk to you about that. I’ve been warned not to.’
‘Seems like we have little comm
on ground, then.’
‘None at all, I’d say.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘But if you’re in any way curious, I’m well over you, Henry. I might miss you, but that’s all, and that’s receding nicely. It would be silly to rake over old coals.’ She sniffed and glanced at the remnants of the stables and tack room. She looked back at Henry. ‘Ironic, eh, that we should meet again and be talking over something that’s been destroyed?’
‘Highly.’ Henry was suddenly distracted. He cocked his head to one side and listened intently, his face screwed up as he concentrated.
‘What is it?’
‘Approaching helicopter.’ He lifted up a finger for hush. The noise, faint at first, increased steadily. He looked east towards the rising sun, squinting and shielding his eyes. The noise grew to a throb.
A helicopter appeared over the horizon, the sun behind it.
At first Henry thought it was the Force helicopter, but it wasn’t. It was too small.
It buzzed overhead and in one flash of sunlight across the fuselage he made out the words ‘Wickson Industries’.
‘John Lloyd Wickson,’ Jane shouted over the sound of the rotor blades.
‘Daddy’s come home . . . that’s nice.’
The helicopter swooped and dropped gently to the heli-pad on the other side of the main house. It hovered, then came to rest. Two figures climbed out, heads low, running towards the house.
‘I’m going to go and meet him,’ Jane said, adding, begrudgingly, ‘Come if you want.’
‘How kind.’
They set off together.
‘Oh, got some news for you, Henry.’
‘What would that be?’
‘We’re getting a new Chief Constable. Have you heard?’
‘No.’
As they walked, Henry could actually feel a rift between them which seemed insurmountable. It was a mistake for him to have turned out, he realized, but then again, how could he have known he would be bumping into Jane Roscoe, someone he hadn’t seen or spoken to for such a long time? If it had been any other detective inspector, there might have been fewer problems.
Henry – unknowingly – grunted in frustration.
‘What?’ Jane asked.
He gave her a look of query. ‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You did.’
‘Nothing, it was nothing.’ As he looked at her, something caught his eye in the distance behind her – on the hillside, maybe a quarter of a mile away. He thought nothing of it. Just his eyes playing tricks or just the early dawn sun catching something. Then it was there again. He stopped, stared, thought better of it and caught up with Jane, who had not paused.
‘I think we’re being spied on.’
‘Paranoid as ever.’
‘No – someone’s watching us from up there.’ Jane started to turn. Henry snapped, ‘Keep going, don’t look.’
When he reached the house he said, ‘I’m going to have a look. I’m curious.’
Jane shook her head sadly. ‘It’ll be nothing. Just hens.’
‘Hens?’ The reply puzzled him, then he shook it off. ‘Maybe it is hens, or maybe it’s the person who set fire to the place, noseying about what’s going on . . . returning to the scene of the crime. One of life’s true clichés, I know, but one that’s served me well in the past. People come back to gloat. Human nature.’
‘Lecture over? And, anyway, what would you know about human nature?’ she said harshly.
Without a further word he walked off to his car, giving a little wave, and saying, ‘Hens?’ under his breath. Jane watched him, wanting to tell him to be careful, but could not bring herself to say the words which would betray her true feelings for the man who had dumped her, the man she yearned for.
She stood rooted to the spot, seeing Henry drive all the way off the property, only turning to the house when his car went out of the gates. She went to the open front door. From inside she could hear the sound of raised voices. Before knocking, she glanced over her shoulder and her stomach churned as her eyes also caught something bright on the hillside. Not a hen, she thought stupidly, not unless it’s wearing shiny jewellery.
Henry was glad of any excuse to get away from Jane, happy to retreat from an interaction that was starting to confuse and worry him. He thought that he was over her, but seeing her again had rekindled the feelings and jumbled up his mind, and he did not like it at all. He was trying not to do emotion anymore.
He drove down a country lane and pulled in close by a roadside hedge, about a mile and a half away from the house. He calculated that if he walked back to the Wickson house across the countryside and fields from where he was, he should, somewhere along the line, pass the point where he saw the glint of reflected light. That was his theory, anyway.
The sun was creeping nicely up the sky. It would be a crisp, clear day. There was a nippy chill in the air and his breath was clearly visible. He locked the car and trotted down the road a hundred metres or so. He was about to hop over a five-barred gate, when he saw a car parked just off the road, in some bushes opposite. It was a strange place for a vehicle at any time. He walked over to it and gave it a once over. Then he returned to the gate and clambered over it. On landing, his trainers sank with a squelch into the ground. He muttered a curse, eased his feet out of the muddy patch and picked his way carefully across the grass. Cows grazed in the field, or just stood there doing whatever cows did with the cud. Henry steered clear of them. He was wary of their herd instinct. He had once dealt with the death of a man who had been trampled by cows which had chased him and his dog and cornered them. It had been a gruesome, muddy death. Ever since then Henry had gladly applied his stereotype to all big, four-legged creatures: don’t trust the bastards.
The cows watched him with suspicion, all of them. But none made a move towards him. Much to his relief he made it unscathed to the opposite side of the field, where he mounted a stile which deposited him in the next field, this time populated by sheep. He had more time for sheep, never having had to deal with a murder by a gang of them. They saw him and ran away bleating with fear, all gathering together in a corner, staring accusingly at him. He liked to have that sort of power over animals.
‘Mint sauce,’ he said under his breath and made it to the opposite side of the field, where there was no stile to be found, just a drainage channel and a barbed-wire fence separating the field from a wooded copse. Henry’s feet were soaking wet, as were his legs up as far as his knees. Even though he had managed to avoid deep mud, the ground was soft and the going hard.
The channel in front of him was at least six feet wide, the fence beyond about four feet high. The channel was not doing a particularly good job as it was filled with water. The folly of what he was doing now struck him and he thought about retracing his steps. But it should not now be too far from where he had seen the reflection. Through the trees, out the other side, up the hill and down the other side should put him there. He hoped.
‘Bugger.’ He decided to take a run at the channel. He went back a few steps, accelerated and launched himself across the ditch. He lost his footing on the mushy grass as he pushed off, slipped and only just managed to reach the other side, where he totally lost grip. In an effort which required a great degree of physical exertion, he grabbed for a fence post. He missed. Went slap-down into the ground and slithered into the channel.
He lay face down for a few, very pissed-off moments, before struggling to his feet and dragging himself up to the fence with a slurp. He held on and looked down at himself with a sneer of annoyance. He was now wet through from waist to foot, covered in slime and mud and probably now carrying that infectious disease that rats passed in their urine which was fatal to humans. He clambered over the fence, catching his jeans on a barb and ripping them. His best – and only – pair of Levis.
He would have liked to laugh at the situation, but somehow the humour of the moment did not permeate through to him. He just felt stupid. And wet. And muddy. And wished he had stayed in bed.
>
After resting a moment to get his breath back, he began to trudge through the copse where every branch and twig seemed to snatch and grab at him, trying to hold him back. He found himself becoming increasingly angry and this made him less thoughtful about what he was doing. Instead of being sneaky and careful, he was thumping and crashing his way through the undergrowth like an elephant. He was more concerned with fighting trees than tiptoeing up behind a felon.
He burst through the other side of the copse into the light. He was breathing hard, so he stopped to let his lungs relax a little, then he ploughed on up the hillside on the other side of which, he guessed, would be the spy on the camp.
The going was easier up the slope, even though the hill was quite steep. On reaching the summit he crouched low, went down on to his knees, aware of the possible folly of revealing himself against the sky. Now he was being more cautious about his approach. He edged to the top of the hill, keeping down, but not quite on his stomach because he did not want to get any dirtier and wetter than he already was.
He raised his face gradually and peered over the crest of the hill, down towards a small scrubby area. Beyond that he had a good view of the stables, the house and the road connecting the two. Well beyond the house he could see the river. He knew he was about right in his positioning and that somewhere below him on the down slope was the point where he had seen the light.
There was still a lot of activity at the stables. The fire service were there, continuing their damping down. He made out a number of people emerging from the main house, one of which was Jane Roscoe. She stopped and, he imagined, looked across in his direction. He almost gave her a wave.
A small white van appeared in the driveway leading up to the house bearing the Lancashire Constabulary crest on the doors and the words ‘Scientific Support’ in black on the sides. The crime scene investigators had arrived, making Henry feel a little more reassured about the way Jane was intending to investigate the offence.