Pale Horse, Dark Horse (The Lakeland Murders)

by Salkeld, J J

  It was another thirty seconds before the door opened, when Hall was just about to knock again. His hand was poised in mid-air, reaching for the large brass knocker.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’ said the man who opened the door. He was a good bit younger than Hall, and six inches shorter too, but the house’s front step was high, so he was on Hall’s eye level.

  Hall opened his Warrant Card. ‘I’m DCI Andy Hall. I wanted to let you know what’s going on in the field next door.’

  ‘We know. One of your men said a body has been found. Bloody inconvenient, I can tell you. We’re having to go the long way round to get in and out now. How long are you going to be, anyway?’

  ‘Can I come in for a minute? Mr. Plouvin, isn’t it?’

  Plouvin looked slightly affronted to be addressed by his name.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’

  ‘I’d like to gather a bit of background too, and since you’re on the spot as it were it makes sense to start with you.’

  ‘Very well’ said Plouvin, standing back to let Hall in, and then turning along a corridor. ‘If you must.’

  ‘Who is it, David?’

  ‘Police. About the stiff among the stones.’

  The woman laughed. It was a nice laugh, and when Hall walked into the kitchen she was standing by the Aga. A tall woman, she looked a few years older than her husband. She seemed very amused by the whole business.

  ‘I’m DCI Andy Hall’ said Hall, walking a step or two towards her, before stopping, He wasn’t sure whether or not to offer his hand. She was looking at him as if a bow might be expected.

  ‘Barbara Plouvin. I must say this is all very exciting. I’m just sorry that the children aren’t here to enjoy it.’

  ‘And where are they?’

  ‘At school, of course.’

  ‘Shouldn’t they be home by now?’

  ‘They’re at boarding school, officer.’ Her eyes were really smiling now. ‘But where are my manners? Can I offer you a coffee? Perhaps something stronger?’

  ‘Coffee would be great, thanks.’

  ‘Of course. You’re on duty, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am, but it’s a bit early for me anyway.’

  Hall glanced down at the table, and saw two half drunk tumblers of Scotch.

  ‘Nonsense’ said David Plouvin, reaching for his glass. Hall stood, uncomfortably, in the middle of the room. ‘How long will your people be out there?’ asked David Plouvin.

  ‘It’s hard to say, but certainly for another few hours. It is a murder scene.’

  ‘So you’re sure that the body was buried there recently?’

  ‘Yes, we are.’

  ‘How recently?’

  ‘We don’t know exactly yet, but from what I gather we’re not talking about decades. A few years, tops.’

  ‘I see. And you want to know where we were for the few years in question?’

  Hall laughed. ‘No, nothing like that. I just wanted to let you know what’s going on, apologise for the inconvenience, and ask you a couple of questions. Just for background.’

  ‘Go on then, man, spit it out.’

  ‘You farm the land around here, then?’

  ‘The Plouvins have held the land around here since the fifteenth century.’

  ‘So it’s all yours, then?’

  ‘No, none of it is. My older brother Christopher, who lives in the des-res that you might have noticed from the lane, owns the land, the houses, the lot. We live here by his grace and favour, and he has farm workers to actually till the soil.’

  ‘I see. So what do you do, Mr. Plouvin?’

  ‘I take an interest in the farm.’

  ‘So you’re the farm manager?’

  Barbara Plouvin laughed briefly, and stopped abruptly.

  ‘No, we have a farm manager. I have a more strategic interest.’

  Barbara Plouvin passed Hall a mug covered in hunting scenes.

  ‘And how long have you lived in this house?’

  ‘For twenty years, since I left home.’

  ‘And home is the des-res up the lane?’

  For the first time David Plouvin smiled. ‘It is indeed, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘And have there been any works, any excavations, anything like that at or near the stone circle in the last few years? Anything that you remember?’

  ‘Absolutely not. It’s a Schelduled Ancient Monument, which essentially means that we are required to provide a tourist attraction entirely at our cost, and play host to assorted weirdos with an interest in stone circles, magic and I don’t know what else. Frankly I’d rather bulldoze the lot, but nanny state says it can’t be done.’

  ‘But presumably there have been archeological digs, like the one that Professor Wilkins was leading?’

  ‘One or two. You stop noticing after a while. They’re all bloody spongers aren’t they. students? They should all get a proper job.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Don’t presume to tell me what I think.’

  Hall’s expression was as equable as ever, but he was aware that Barbara Plouvin was watching him carefully.

  ‘In the fairly recent past, the last two or three years say, have you noticed any unusual activities in or around the stone circle? Not just digging.’

  David Plouvin laughed again. ‘We’ve seen nothing else. Couples shagging, dancing around like bloody new-age Morris dancers, you name it. People are always looking for meaning in their lives. I just wish they’d go and look for it on someone else’s land, that’s all.’

  ‘And how about you, Mrs. Plouvin?’

  ‘I try not to look, really. As David says, people do get up to some strange things. For some reason they seem to think that we can’t see them, but we can.’

  ‘Thanks. Just one more question. You’re not aware of any local people going missing, are you? Say, in the last few years.’

  ‘Missing?’ said David Plouvin, and Hall wondered briefly which part of ‘missing’ was the one that he didn’t understand.

  ‘Has anyone left the area suddenly, and no-one knows where they’ve gone, or why?’

  ‘Oh no’ said David Plouvin quickly, ‘nothing like that. But you’d have to ask in the village to be sure. We don’t have much to do with the locals, unless they work for us, of course.’

  Hall walked back across the yard, further along the lane, and up the crunching gravel drive to the larger house. He couldn’t see a name anywhere, but then it hardly needed one. He knocked, and the door opened almost immediately.

  To Hall’s surprise it looked as if David Plouvin had somehow managed to get ahead of him, changed his clothes, and was now standing in front of him.

  ‘Mr. Plouvin? Mr. Christopher Plouvin?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me. My brother phoned and said you were coming.’

  ‘Your twin brother?’

  ‘Yes. We’re identical twins. But I’m the oldest, by nearly twenty minutes, which is why I copped for this pile, when our older brother went.’

  ‘Can you be absolutely sure that you’re the oldest?’

  Christopher Plouvin laughed. ‘Now that is a very shrewd question, if I may say so. It’s also one that David has asked many, many times. Is it possible that our parents mixed us up, at some point in our babyhood? Of course it is. But when the music stopped I was Christopher and he was David, which is why I’m here and he’s down there at Home Farm. Anyway, come on in. Would you like the tour?’

  ‘Perhaps another time. I’d be really interested.’

  They stood in the entrance hall. Hall had expected the stern portraits and the antlers, and they were both present and correct, but the smell of decay and the layer of dust was missing.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t fancy the tour? There’s no charge.’ Plouvin smiled.

  ‘No, really, another time. Just a couple of questions for now, if I may. As you’ll appreciate I’m rather busy. How many people live in the house?’

  ‘Just me and my housekeeper, Mrs. Green.’


  ‘So you’re not married then?’

  ‘No. Years ago I would have said that I never found the right girl, something like that.’

  ‘And now?’ Hall realised what Plouvin meant. ‘Oh, I see what you mean, sorry.’

  ‘Not at all. There were no gay people in Cumbria until very recently, it’s a well known fact. Not until well after the Beatles’ first LP, anyway.’

  ‘You like Larkin?’

  ‘Yes, and all sorts of other fun besides.’

  Hall smiled. ‘Me too, Larkin, I mean. The authentic voice of male self-criticism, I always think. Anyway, I’ve asked your brother and his wife this already...’

  ‘Barbara isn’t David’s wife’ Christopher interrupted.

  ‘But I thought she said her name was Plouvin? Unusual name for a co-incidence.’

  ‘It’s not. Barbara was, or I should say is, married to our older brother, Rupert. The children are both his. But he left Barbara and the kids and buggered off to South Africa a couple of years ago. He broke all ties, just upped and left.’

  ‘And when was this?’

  ‘Two years ago, almost exactly.’

  ‘And do you have contact with your brother?’

  ‘Not really. There was a legal settlement of course, but that was mainly handled by the lawyers. We didn’t part on the best of terms, as you can understand. It’s fair to say that Rupert wasn’t best pleased that Barbara preferred David to him, but there it is. These things happen, I suppose, but not usually to the Plouvins it has to be said. We’re usually a boringly dutiful lot, shackled to all this in just the same way that it’s all shackled to us.’

  Hall wondered whether to ask for a description of Rupert, and maybe a photograph too, but he didn’t. It was much too soon. But it probably explained why David Plouvin had wanted a clearer definition of the word ‘missing’.

  ‘Thanks for your time, Mr. Plouvin. I won’t keep you, although either myself or a colleague may need to talk to you again. But before I go, I just wanted to check that you haven’t seen anything odd happening around the stones? Digging, anything like that?’

  ‘No, but that’s about all I haven’t seen. I don’t know what it is about stone circles, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, your brother told me. Well, thanks again for your time, and sorry about the inconvenience.’

  ‘Not at all, you’re just doing your job.’

  Hall nodded, and turned to leave, then stopped and turned back.

  ‘You haven’t asked me anything about the body.’

  ‘My brother said that you don’t know much about him yet.’

  ‘What makes you think it’s a him?’

  ‘Someone must have mentioned it, or maybe I just assumed it was a man. It usually is, isn’t it?’

  Hall looked steadily at Plouvin, who met his gaze and smiled. Hall thanked him again, turned, and set off on the long walk across the hall to the front door.

  As Hall was strolling back along the lane, past the farm and round the corner before the stones, he saw the Incident Unit truck arriving. That could only mean one thing: Sandy had found clear evidence of foul play. Hall smiled, certain in the knowledge that his time in committees and working groups was behind him, at least for now. And he was still smiling when he reached the group of cops standing waiting for the Incident Unit to get parked up properly.

  ‘All right, boss?’ asked Ray Dixon, who, for some reason, was wearing a pair of purple wellies. Hall couldn’t think of a comment that one of the lads wouldn’t have come up with already, so he didn’t bother.

  ‘Sandy called this in?’ asked Hall, nodding towards the truck.

  ‘She did. Male of about thirty, bloody great big shotgun wound to the chest apparently. Can’t be suicide she told me, among various other things.’

  ‘Been giving you a hard time, has she, Ray?’

  ‘If Sandy was a bloke, and said that sort of thing to be a female officer, we’d bloody nick her for it. On the spot, like.’

  ‘Sandy’s the product of another era though, Ray, a bit like you in fact. And she’s bloody good at her job.’

  ‘Also a bit like me, boss?’

  Hall smiled. ‘If you say so, Ray. Did Sandy say when she’d be able to talk?’

  ‘She should be here any minute. She’s promising us a slide show when the truck’s parked up, and I know how much you enjoy those.’

  Hall’s dislike of blood, let alone the results of advanced decomposition, were well known in the job, and a source of some amusement.

  ‘Is Tonto about?’ asked Hall.

  ‘Yes, he’s poking about in the bushes somewhere around here. Do you want me to get the full search team geared up, then?’

  ‘Yes, get it sorted please, Ray. But let’s do it tomorrow, give Sandy and Tonto and the Doc a chance to give us a few pointers first. It’ll cost a bloody fortune, and it’s not like there’s any great hurry,’

  It had started to rain again, quite lightly, and Hall checked his emails in the truck while he waited for Sandy Smith.

  ‘Get me a coffee, someone, for fuck’s sake. I’m colder than your corpse, Andy.’

  ‘Gun shot wound?’ asked Andy mildly.

  ‘You wait till you see the fucking pictures. The Doc’s out there now, complaining about his bloody knees as usual, but you won’t need him to confirm it. The bloke’s guts must have been spattered everywhere. Close range, both barrels I’d say.’

  ‘Any idea how long our man’s been down there?’

  ‘That’ll be for the Doc and the soil analysis people, but I’d say a year, eighteen months, tops.’

  ‘Not two years?’

  ‘I just fucking said, didn’t I?’

  Ray Dixon gave Sandy a drink and she grunted. It might have been a ‘thank you’, but it probably wasn’t.

  ‘Nothing to ID the body, I suppose?’ asked Hall.

  ‘We haven’t got underneath yet, so I can’t say for certain, but there’s been nothing so far.’

  ‘Any obvious tatts, jewelry, anything like that?’

  ‘I’ll leave the Doc on the first one, but you do know what decomposition is, don’t you, Andy? He’s not exactly fresh as a daisy, you know. Pushing up daisies, more like. Like I say, you wait ‘til I show the pictures. But one thing, he was wearing a great big gold chain, fucking horrible thing it is, and whoever topped him didn’t even bother to nick it. So that should give you something to think about, Sherlock.’

  It was almost nine before Andy Hall got home, and Jane had the champagne opened before he’d even got his shoes off. By ten they were making an effort to keep the noise down, because Ruth, Hall’s younger daughter, was upstairs revising for an exam the next day.

  Hall couldn’t stop smiling, and Jane knew why. Because while his delight at her promotion was completely genuine she knew, probably better than he did, how relieved he must be to be back on a case.

  ‘Any leads?’ she asked, as they sat on the sofa, her head on his shoulder.

  ‘No, not to speak of. The body’s been in the ground awhile too, so I reckon it could be a right bastard, this one.’

  Jane looked up at Hall. He was still smiling.

  Tuesday, 4th June

  DCI Andy Hall dropped Jane off at Kendal Police Station at just after six, and then he drove on to HQ. Jane, along with DS Ian Mann and DC Ray Dixon, would follow later, for the first full investigative team meeting, but she had several hours before they’d need to set off. So she opened the spreadsheet that she’d been working on for Ian Mann, and found that this morning she had absolutely no difficulty concentrating. She didn’t even notice when DS Ian Mann walked in, and when she looked up he was standing, a little awkwardly, by her desk.

  ‘Well done, Jane. Brilliant. You deserve it.’

  ‘Cheers, Ian. That means a lot.’

  Jane didn’t expect Ian to say anything else, and she wasn’t disappointed. They both looked relieved when her phone rang. She listened for a few seconds, and Ian Mann stayed where he was.

&n
bsp; ‘OK. I’ll be down in a minute.’

  ‘Trouble?’ asked Mann, cheerfully.

  ‘No, at least I don’t think so. Parent of a girl who he says was the victim of an attempted rape last Saturday. He says we’ve done nothing about it. But it can’t have been an attempted rape, because we would all have known about it, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Well, you certainly would, Jane. So I’m sure we would too’ said Mann, turning and making for his desk.

  Jane watched him walk away, then searched the system for the name she’d been given. She read the crime report on screen while she waited for it to be printed off. The case had been logged as an ABH, but as she read it Jane became increasingly annoyed. It was obviously a Sexual Touching, had to be. Whoever had logged it, and it was a PC she didn’t know, just didn’t want to record a target crime where there was no realistic chance of an arrest. Jane understood why that was, and she wasn’t above doing much the same herself with minor offences, but there were limits. And so, when she picked up the crime report from the printer, she felt the tightening in her stomach that she always felt when she knew that her colleagues hadn’t done as much as they could for a victim.

  Ravi Bose was waiting in reception. He already had a visitor’s badge on his lapel, so Jane took him straight through to the victim support room. She was going to offer a coffee, but everything about Bose suggested that he wanted to get straight to business. And, given that it was still before eight and he’d had an hour’s drive to Kendal, she suspected that he had a business to get to as well.

  ‘How is Rita?’ Jane asked, before they’d even sat down.

  ‘Back at work. She went back yesterday. We begged her not to, but she went anyway.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s for the best.’