by Salkeld, J J
‘No, I don’t think so. Nothing I remember now, anyway.’
‘Did either of you get out of the vehicle during the crossing?’
‘No, I don’t think so. We just sat and talked tactics, for the fishing, like. Why are you asking?’
‘A young woman was sexually assaulted later that morning, and it seems certain that the offender got into her car during the crossing.’
‘I see. Bloody hell, that’s amazing. He must have had a nerve, then, whoever did it. But no, sorry, I didn’t notice anything at all I’m afraid.’
‘OK, thanks. And if you do think of anything let me know. Here’s my card. Now, let me get out of your way and leave you to your supper. It smells lovely, by the way.’
‘Thanks, you’re welcome to some if you fancy it. I always cook far too much. I don’t know why. From when I was married, probably.’ He smiled, a little nervously.
Jane was already on her feet. ‘No, thanks, Mr. Williams. I must be getting home. My partner has already texted about five times, wondering where I’ve got to.’
‘I’m not surprised. Not to worry, then. Some other time, perhaps.’
As Jane started the car she thought about her lie. Why had she bothered with it? She glanced at the clock on the dashboard, and wondered what Andy would be doing when she got home.
Thursday, 6th June
Andy Hall was on his way to Police HQ in Penrith before Jane was even out of the shower. He picked up Ian Mann from his house, and Mann drove so that Hall could make some calls as they went.
‘As we thought, Ian. False name and address for this Ian Webster character, and the others check out. All alive and well.’
‘So we’re not much nearer finding out who he really was, then.’
‘You know better than that, mate. Our man was either a Traveller or associated with the Traveller community, wasn’t he? Must have been. So instead of looking for a needle in all the haystacks in the country, and maybe overseas too, we’re just looking in one haystack. Guess how many Travellers there are in Britain?’
‘Fifty thousand, maybe a few more?’
‘I would have guessed at that sort of number too, but it’s much more. Maybe 300,000. I looked online last night when I got home. So it’s a bit of luck that a fair percentage of them are all converging on Appleby this week. Anyway, I’ve arranged to meet our Traveller liaison officer at HQ this morning. She’ll fill us in. I’m sure. And she’s sitting in on the interview with the publican and his wife right now, so that might help too.’
But after five minutes with DC Annie Murphy Hall was starting to have his doubts about how valuable she’d be. He was finding her attitude very defensive, passive-aggressive was what Jane usually called it, and he didn’t think he’d done anything to deserve it.
‘What makes you so sure that your body was a Traveller?’ she asked.
‘Why do you ask?’ asked Hall.
‘I was wondering if it was just lazy prejudice,’ said Murphy, pausing briefly before adding, ‘sir’.
‘No, I don’t think it’s that. And I’m certainly not making any assumptions about our corpse’s ethnicity at this stage. What I am saying is that he was in Appleby at Fair time last year, and it’s one of the biggest Traveller events of the year. It’s not unreasonable to assume that he was there for the Fair.’
‘Doesn’t make him a Traveller, though, does it? And that publican and his wife don’t remember the bloke saying anything about the Fair, do they? They definitely were making assumptions. No doubt about that.’
‘That’s true enough’ said Hall, ‘but we need to identify this man urgently, and we do have a viable lead here. Frankly, it’s all we’ve got, and we will be following it up vigorously, and I don’t care whose feathers we have to ruffle. I do appreciate that Police officers and the wider community have been guilty of all kinds of stereotyping against Travellers over the years, but we have a duty to this man, whoever he is, to establish his identity and then to catch his killer. Now there are two ways we can do that, DC Murphy. Either we can utilise your knowledge of the community and make contact with key people, or we can flood the Fair with every single person on my team, and keep them there until the last caravan has left Fair Hill. Since we already have a very substantial uniformed presence I’m not sure how kindly the Travellers would take to having another 20 or 30 detectives on the plot, day and night, for the next few days. So, how do you suggest we proceed, DC Murphy? Shall we make a sensitive, targeted approach, or shall I call in the cavalry?’
Ian Mann smiled at her while she considered what Hall had said.
‘Let me make some calls. I might be able to arrange something for tomorrow. Later on tomorrow.’
‘I’m afraid not, DC Murphy. Have you ever been involved in a murder enquiry before?’
‘I don’t see how that’s relevant.’
‘Have you?’
‘No, sir, I haven’t.’
‘That’s not a problem, but you see I have, and rightly or wrongly the bosses have made me responsible for the investigation of how a young man came to end up in a shallow grave with his insides all on the outside. Now if you think I’m taking a heavy handed approach to a minority community then by all means make a report to that effect, but meantime either help us move at the pace I set, or don’t help at all. Because myself and DS Mann are leaving for Appleby in fifteen minutes, with or without you, DS Murphy.’
Twenty minutes later Ian Mann was driving DCI Hall and DC Murphy towards Appleby.
‘Tell me about the man we’re meeting’ said Hall, over his shoulder. ‘I’d like to know a bit more about him.’
‘Tommy Faa is an influential man in the community, a leader if you like, and he usually takes care of negotiations with the authorities, on serious matters anyway.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Lots of reasons, but the fact that he has a first-class degree in law probably has something to do with it. There’s more than one local council that’s lived to regret underestimating Tommy Faa, I can tell you that.’
‘And does he travel all the time?’
‘Is he a pretend gypsy do you mean? No, he’s the real deal, from an ancient family of Scottish Travellers I believe, though he lives in the Midlands somewhere. And he has a house, that’s not uncommon at all, but he spends part of the year travelling, along with members of his extended family.’
‘And what’s his attitude to us?’
‘Based on previous experience I’d say that depends on the approach and attitudes of the officer. I’ll be very interested to see how he takes to you, Sir.’
It took Ian Mann fully twenty minutes to drive the half mile from the Castle at the top of the town down to the bridge over the Eden in the heart of Appleby. The traffic was chaotic. When they were finally on the old bridge, where they sat motionless for five minutes, Hall climbed out of the car and joined the crowd looking over the parapet at the river below. There were ten or twenty horses, ridden bareback by teenagers, that were being ridden through the river in a kind of circuit. At one point, close to the bridge, they plunged into a deeper part, so that only the wide-eyed horses’ heads and the riders’ torsos were above the water. Meanwhile, in the shallower water, younger children were squirting washing up liquid onto the back of other animals, then washing it off with buckets of river water. And on the bank Hall could see RSPCA Inspectors, plus a few uniformed cops, watching the whole thing.
‘Quite a show, isn’t it?’ said Murphy, who had also got out of the car.
‘It’s changed a bit since I was last here.’
‘Oh aye? You didn’t mention that you’d been before, sir.’
‘Yes, about twenty years ago now, when we first came up here. I wanted to get to know the county a bit, you know: the culture, the history, the real living stuff. All the stuff that makes Cumbria special, if you like. And one of the things I came to was the Horse Fair.’
‘So that was back when it wasn’t just the horses that were in black and white, was it?
I was just a toddler then. So how has it changed, over the years?’
Hall thought about it for a minute or two, and pointed at an RSPCA Inspector who seemed to be involved in a heated conversation with one of the horse riders, who had led his animal back onto the grassy riverbank.
‘Well, they washed the horses then too, of course, but there were nothing like as many visitors, or as many Travellers come to that. Not as many Range Rovers, that’s for sure. There weren’t any film crews either’ said Hall, pointing at a group of people standing on the bank. ‘And I don’t remember seeing any of those teenage girls riding the horses. I seem to recall that it was just the boys then, the girls were nowhere to be seen. I think I commented on it to my wife at the time. I’ll be interested to see what it’s like up on Fair Hill, but I remember seeing small groups of older men, all standing along the verges on Roman Road. I watched some of them bargain over horses. There was lots of slapping of hands and arguing. One group would walk away from the other, then be encouraged back, until a deal was done. It was all quite theatrical. Or maybe it was a ritual. Perhaps that’s a better word for what I saw.’
‘That’s how it used to be, all right. But that’s all before the TV got interested. Now every Traveller is a potential star, or else they want their face pixelated out, don’t they? It’s funny, people love watching them on TV now, the Travellers, but they play merry hell with us if they move onto a field next door to their house.’
Hall looked at DC Murphy.
‘Are you from a Travelling background yourself?’
‘Yes, sir, I am, but my dad married out and my mum was a teacher, so we pretty much stayed put. My dad doesn’t even come out here now, and he hasn’t in as long as I can remember.’
‘I wonder why? You’d think he’d like to catch up with old friends and relations.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it was all too painful for him, seeing the life he’d left. The life he didn’t have. Christ knows what he’d make of all this. But then Travellers have always been in the entertainment business, I suppose.’
Hall nodded. He knew what she meant. Then Ian Mann hooted the horn and Hall turned.
‘Looks like we’re moving again. But I must say that the atmosphere seems a lot friendlier now. When I came it was mainly Travellers here, with just a few gawkers like me walking about, and hardly any of our lot. Now it looks like we’re geared up for trouble.’
Another five minutes saw Ian Mann nudging in to the Police station car park. He tried to park his Focus where he judged it was least likely to get bashed by a police van, or a carelessly opened door. He went inside, left the keys, and asked that the Inspector who was Bronze command for the day be informed that they were on site, and were heading up to Fair Hill.
‘Do we want a lift up to the top?’ he asked Hall, when he came back out of the station.
Hall looked up at the sky. It was still cloudy, but warm and windy with it. It didn’t look like rain.
‘I suggest we walk up, sir’ said DC Murphy. ‘It’ll probably be quicker.’
The three of them set off, with Murphy leading the way. There were horses everywhere, either being ridden bareback, the riders leaning backwards as if trying to stop the animals from bolting, or pulling carts, often at astonishing speeds. Hall noticed an APNR machine set up by the side of the road, recording number plates as they passed.
‘Do we make many arrests?’ asked Hall, as they walked.
‘For traffic stuff?’ said Murphy. ‘Some, but not as many as we used to. I’m not saying that there aren’t some proper villains here, sir, but the ones that are around don’t get done for not having insurance, or pulling too much weight on a trailer. They’re much too smart for that, worse luck.’
The traffic was nose to tail up all the way past the school, and the footpath was just as crowded. Things didn’t get easier when they walked under the railway bridge and headed up to Fair Hill itself. Hall thought the atmosphere was a bit like an especially edgy fairground, with just a hint of something darker under the gleaming aluminium of the caravans.
Hall was really surprised at the number of big, modern caravans on the hillside. He didn’t remember seeing many of those previously. He spotted a few traditional vardos too, though some were on trailers. It all seemed bigger, noisier and wealthier than the Fair that he remembered.
‘Tommy said he’s up near the back at the very top’ said DC Murphy, turning into a field and walking past stalls selling everything from trotting outfits to gold jewellery. Hall didn’t remember those being here the last time he’d come either. But, he thought as they walked, that’s probably the thing about living history, people’s history. It’s not set in stone, like Long Meg.
‘Wait here a minute, please, sir’ said Murphy, when they reached a large caravan, parked at the very high point on the hill and looking down on all the whole site. She knocked and went inside, and a few minutes later a woman and a couple of teenage girls came out and walked quickly away. Hall looked down at the site of the Fair, while Mann kept an eye on the group of men who were watching them from outside a caravan just below them.
After a few minutes the door opened again, and Annie Murphy beckoned them in. Hall had expected brightly painted pottery, but inside the caravan was sleek and modern. And Tommy Faa looked thoroughly modern too. Hall reckoned they were about the same age, and similarly dressed, although Faa’s dark suit looked a good deal newer than Hall’s. On balance Hall decided that if someone was asked to pick the Traveller from the cop, based on appearances alone, it would be a fifty-fifty decision, although Hall knew that Faa’s clothes cost far more than a DCI could ever afford.
Faa gestured for them to sit, and all three officers sat, bunched together, on a long sofa facing him. Mann glanced through a gap at the bottom of the net curtains and could see that the group of men had moved, and were standing around the door of the caravan now. It didn’t make him nervous, but then the space inside was small, and they’d only be able to get at him one at a time in the unlikely event that the men meant them any harm. And Mann liked those odds.
‘Annie says that you’re trying to identify this man’ said Faa, holding up the picture that DC Murphy had given him.
‘That’s right’ said Hall.
‘And he’s a murder victim?’
‘Yes, he was found in a shallow grave at a stone circle near here. He was killed by a shotgun wound, fired at close range. We can’t find out who killed him, or even return his body to his family, until we find out who he was.’
‘And you think he might have been a gypsy?’
‘Not necessarily. But we do think that he had contact with the community at the very least. We know that he was here, at the Fair, last year. So we’re hoping that you can help us identify him.’
Faa looked back down at the photograph, then handed it back to DC Murphy.
‘Do you have reason to believe that this man was killed by a Traveller?’
‘It’s far too early to speculate on that. So no, we don’t.’
‘Do you believe that he was involved in criminal activity?’
‘That’s certainly a possibility, but again it’s far too soon to say.’
‘Why do you think he was a criminal? Because you think he could have been a Traveller?’
‘No’ said Hall patiently, ‘that’s not why. We can’t find out who he is through our missing persons system, and as you’ll understand that’s a very unusual occurrence. Normally, people are concerned when a loved one goes missing, and they contact us. But no-one did in this case, at least as far as we can ascertain.’
Faa looked at Andy Hall for a long time before he spoke again.
‘And you’re leading this investigation, are you DCI Hall?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘And what do you think of Gypsies? Of Travellers?’
‘I don’t know very much about them, I’m afraid.’
‘But you must have an opinion. Everyone does.’
‘Well, I’m ce
rtainly interested in the historical aspects of the travelling tradition.’
‘But what don’t you like about us? The modern Traveller I mean. There must be something. It’s not all raggle-taggle gypsy-oh, the Traveller life, now is it?’
‘No. I’m sure it’s not. Well, I don’t know if Travellers really are guilty of fraud offences against older, vulnerable people, I’d have to look at the statistics to be sure, but I must admit that if they were that would concern me greatly.’
‘You see it as your role to protect the vulnerable? The weak from the strong?’
‘Among many other things I suppose, but yes, I suppose I do. Every Police officer knows that every offence should be treated on its merits, and that every victim of crime has suffered equally, but that’s not the reality of what happens on the ground. It’s inevitable that value judgements are made, all along the investigative line.’
‘You mean that if one tanked-up yobbo decides to beat another tanked up yobbo to a pulp that’s not the same as if the victim was a pensioner, say, or a young child.’
‘Pretty much, yes. Coppers are human, and we’re members of society too. But that’s why we have systems and procedures in place, to make sure that we do what we should, irrespective of the circumstances and our personal feelings as well, come to that.’
‘And you’re the sort of Policeman who follows procedure, are you Detective Chief Inspector Hall?’
Hall turned to Mann.
‘Ian, what would you say?’
Mann thought for a moment. ‘I’d say that you’re guided by procedures, but not ruled by them. But I’d also say that I’ve never seen you take any action based on your personal views or opinions, not once.’