by Granger, Ann
The younger woman, seated behind a battered old table, looked partly relieved to see a new arrival and partly wary. The conflicting emotions flickered across her face.
‘Yes?’ she asked. This, then, must be Penny Gower. Thank goodness the stable owner wasn’t the wiry woman.
Before Jess could answer, the man detached himself from the wall, grinned and said, ‘It’s the fuzz. You’ve been raided, Pen!’
‘Police?’ demanded the wiry woman immediately. ‘Have you come about that nonsense at Cricket?’
Jess ignored her and produced her ID again to show them. She was slightly discomfited at being identified so promptly and before she’d opened her mouth. It wasn’t the first time it had happened and she ought to be used to it. They must be expecting the police to call, after the incident at the farm. But she’d found, as so many of her plain-clothes colleagues had, that the general public was remarkably well attuned to the presence of law officers.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you when you’re obviously busy, but perhaps we could have a word?’
The wiry woman didn’t take kindly to being ignored. From the corner of her eye Jess saw her bristle and take up a combative attitude.
‘Yes, of course,’ Penny said. ‘Sorry, Selina, I’ll be out directly the police have finished with me.’
‘Hah!’ said the wiry woman darkly and marched out with a last laser glare at Jess. Probably, thought Jess, she was off to phone the chief constable.
‘I’ll push off, too,’ said the man, not sounding as though he meant to do it. He didn’t move.
‘No,’ Penny put out a hand to prevent him. ‘Stay, please, Andy. Inspector, this is Andrew Ferris, a friend. He was here on Friday, too. You want to talk about Friday, I suppose? I’m Penny Gower, by the way.’ She looked round her. ‘Do sit down, there’s a chair . . .’
Ferris now moved with alacrity, detaching himself from the wall to grab a rickety wooden chair, which he flourished towards the visitor. Jess took a seat as gingerly as Mr Pritchard had the saddle.
‘I hope I haven’t upset a valued client,’ she said, indicating the yard behind her with a jerk of her head.
‘Ma Foscott?’ said Ferris, grinning. He had good teeth. He was a good-looking bloke, thought Jess. ‘Don’t worry about her, the old battleaxe.’
‘Sh!’ hissed Penny. ‘She’s probably lurking outside, Andy. That’s Selina Foscott, Inspector. We have her daughter’s pony here.’
Jess recalled the very small girl toiling away grooming the stout pony.
‘She was also here on Friday, by the way.’ Penny looked a little glum. ‘Selina and Charlie were here every day last week.’
Damn! thought Jess. I’ve offended Mrs Foscott and now I’ve got to interview the old bat. She’ll take pleasure in being awkward.
‘I am here about the business at Cricket Farm,’ she said aloud, briskly professional. Ferris twitched an eyebrow and looked as if he might grin again, but decided in time it would be inappropriate.
Jess gave him a look to let him know she’d spotted the near-grin and Ferris responded by looking suitably meek, like a chastened schoolboy.
‘I’m particularly interested to know if either of you noticed anything unusual on Friday, at any time of the day, or earlier in the week. I know you can’t see the farmyard, but you are its nearest neighbour.’
Penny waved a hand around her. ‘All this is Eli’s land. Eli Smith, that is. Only the stables belong to me. I rent the paddock from Eli. The whole outfit was derelict when I bought it. The previous owner had been obliged to cease business, the horses had all left long since and no one had been interested to take the place on.’
‘How did you know about it?’ Jess asked, curious.
‘Oh, well.’ Penny looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I was living in London and teaching. Being a teacher in an inner city school these days is no fun. Also I – I was in a relationship that was going nowhere.’ She reddened.
Behind her, Ferris muttered, ‘Who isn’t?’
Penny went on, ‘When I was a kid, we used to visit an aunt who lived down here. I always loved the area. She, my auntie, died and I came down here for the funeral. It happened that was also a half-term, so I took the week. I’d come on my own, because I – well – I felt the need to be alone for a bit. I was driving around and I passed by this place with a For Sale notice that had been there so long it had fallen into a hedge and was barely visible. No one had bothered to reerect it. I stopped the car and came to explore. It – it sort of spoke to me. All in a terrible state, of course. But I felt I needed a change of direction. I didn’t like my life in London and that For Sale sign offered me a chance of something quite different. My aunt had left me a little money, I’d always been keen on horses . . . well, I made a sudden decision and bought it.’
‘It must have been an expensive business, getting it up and running again,’ commented Jess. ‘A lot of very hard work, too.’
‘It took every last cent of Auntie’s money,’ Penny Gower said frankly. ‘Together with what I got from my ex-partner for my share of the flat we were buying. I was rather lucky there in that he wanted to keep it on. Now I struggle along and survive, mostly because I’ve got very good friends. One of them is Lindsey Harper. You might have seen her outside?’ She paused and looked at Jess.
‘Yes, I met her.’ Jess nodded.
‘Lindsey keeps her own horse here and in addition comes in nearly every day and works her socks off, helping out.’
‘She has no other job?’ Jess asked curiously.
‘Oh, well, her husband is pretty well off . . .’ Penny said awkwardly.
‘Rolling!’ contributed Ferris, less inhibited.
‘Then there’s Andy here.’ Penny turned to smile up at him.
Ferris returned the smile. The look in his eyes told Jess enough. Smitten, she thought sympathetically, he thinks she’s the bee’s knees. I wonder how she feels about him? Fond of him, I’d guess, but not in love.
‘Andy not only comes over and helps with the heavy jobs, like building the jumps in the paddock. He also does my accounts on the cheap.’
‘I’m an accountant,’ explained Ferris. ‘I’m self-employed. It lets me arrange my day pretty well as I want it.’
‘In addition there’s Eli,’ Penny said suddenly. ‘I mustn’t forget him. Eli can mend things, anything. He’s also the landlord of my cottage and, frankly, the rent I pay him is laughable. You’ve met Eli? Oh, that’s a silly question. You must have done.’
‘If you mean Eli Smith, then he found the – the victim.’ Jess could have said ‘body’ but some witnesses went a bit funny at that word. Although both Penny Gower and Andrew Ferris, she guessed, were made of sterner stuff.
Penny leaned forward over the table. ‘Eli is very kind,’ she said with emphasis. ‘He’s a bit eccentric, but that’s because . . .’ She paused.
‘Because?’
She looked embarrassed but then shrugged. ‘You’ll hear about it, I suppose. The Smith family used to farm Cricket together. I’m talking of years ago. There were the parents and two brothers, Eli and Nathan. I can’t remember which brother was the older. One day, for a reason no one knows, Nathan shot dead both his elderly parents with a shotgun kept in the house. He was arrested but while awaiting trial managed to hang himself in his cell. Eli boarded up the house, left the farm to its own devices and has never lived there since. He uses the yard, though, for storage.’
‘He told us about his scrap business,’ Jess said thoughtfully. She’d asked Phil Morton to look up Smith on the police national computer. If he had, this is what he would have found. No wonder the presence of the police again at Cricket Farm made Eli Smith nervous.
‘Andy and I feel a bit guilty!’ said Penny unexpectedly, glancing up at Ferris for confirmation.
Ferris looked startled but then nodded loyally.
‘Oh?’ asked Jess and waited.
‘Because it’s our fault, or rather, it’s my fault, poor Eli had the awful experie
nce of finding another body at the farm. It was Eli, you see, who found his dead parents, and his brother watching over them, at the farm. Nathan, they say, was sitting at the kitchen table, just waiting for him to come home. I think Eli had been to market. He wasn’t there when it happened, anyway. He just walked in. The shotgun was lying on the table in front of Nathan and there was blood everywhere. Can you imagine what it was like for Eli? Just walking in and finding a horrible scene like that?’ Penny shuddered. ‘And now he’s had to go through it all again, walking in on a dead body.’
‘Nathan must have flipped his lid!’ said Ferris. ‘I don’t know why they didn’t just plead insanity. The poor bloke hanged himself, anyway, in his cell.’
And there will have been hell to pay about that, thought Jess, and an official inquiry. Nathan Smith should have been the subject of suicide watch. His taking of his own life ought not to have been possible.
‘Wonder why Nathan didn’t blast off the shotgun at Eli, too?’ Ferris asked thoughtfully. ‘He must have had plenty of time to reload.’
‘Why is it your fault Eli Smith found the body?’ Jess asked Penny. Easy as it would be to be diverted by this gruesome account of a long-ago crime, she was here to investigate a modern one. They’d have to check out the earlier murders, of course. Three dead bodies, all on one farm, well . . .
Ferris and Penny Gower had begun talking together, eager to tell her their story. She wondered if they’d rehearsed it.
‘Not your fault at all!’ Ferris said indignantly. ‘Honestly, Pen, you have to get over this way you have of worrying about other people. It was on Eli’s property and who else should find it?’
‘Of course I feel it’s my fault, I saw the car!’ Penny was arguing.
They squabbled until Jess brought them to order, again feeling she was being faced by an overenthusiastic class of eager but undisciplined kids.
‘Right . . .’ said Ferris apologetically. ‘It’s just that Pen . . .’
‘No, I don’t! But I’m fond of Eli and I have to worry. He’s not a young man . . .’
Jess held up her hand. ‘One of you! Ms Gower?’
In the end the story came out fairly coherently.
Penny had seen a strange car, a silver-grey Mercedes, she thought, an expensive car, anyway. It had been pulled off the road between the stables and the farm where there was an entry to a field.
‘I was driving my horsebox back from Eli’s place. Eli fixed some damage. I told you, Eli is very kind.’
‘The Mercedes . . .’ Jess reminded her patiently.
The driver had been in the car but behaving oddly as Penny drove past. Penny’s impression had been that he was trying to hide. She’d told Andrew on her return to the stables.
Vigorous nodding from Ferris at this point and he took up the tale.
‘I thought we, one of us, ought to inform Eli because, well, neither of us is sure quite what Eli keeps at the farm. Look here,’ Ferris added hastily. ‘I don’t mean he keeps anything there he shouldn’t. Frankly it looks like rubbish but it must have some value or old Eli wouldn’t deal in it. Anyhow, I offered to ring Eli . . .’
‘And I gave Andrew Eli’s mobile number . . .’
‘And I rang him. He said, “I’ll take a look, then.” Eli is usually a man of few words. But I thought, fair enough, I’ve passed on the news.’
Ferris frowned. ‘I was going to cut the call, but then he suddenly added that he had to go out to the farm some time soon with some scrap, so he’d make it sooner rather than later and go today – that is, he meant he’d go that day, Friday. It’s not like Eli to be so loquacious so I reckoned the news had worried him. The old boy did go and found the stiff. Penny’s right. It was rotten for the poor old chap. Enough to send him off his chump, like brother Nathan. I’m sorry now I didn’t wait up there and look round the place with him. But Eli’s funny about anyone knowing his business. He wouldn’t have liked it, if I’d offered to accompany him. He’d have thought I was being nosy.’
‘What time was all this?’ asked Jess, pulling out her notebook.
Penny and Ferris watched her actions with interest. Then they looked at each other.
‘I must have seen him about a quarter to four,’ said Penny uncertainly, ‘or near enough. I left Eli’s place about twenty to four. I know that because I looked at my watch. Andrew had told me he meant to drive over and I wondered if he’d be there when I got back, and he was. I drove quite fast home.’ She flushed. ‘I don’t mean I broke the speed limit. I meant, I had no horse in the trailer so I hadn’t to worry about that.’
‘You didn’t drive past Cricket Farm, Mr Ferris, on your way here?’
He shook his head. ‘Nope, came the other way. But Penny got here about a quarter to four, like she said. It’s only a minute or two from Cricket Farm to here by car. Old lady Foscott took her unappealing brat and went home about four, five past perhaps, and I decided to ring old Eli’s mobile at about quarter past four or let’s say twenty past.’
‘Eli Smith didn’t mention any of this to us,’ said Jess. ‘I don’t mean the family history. I can understand why he didn’t mention that. I mean, he didn’t tell us you’d seen a car or that Mr Ferris had called him about it.’
Penny and Andrew exchanged glances. Ferris chuckled and even Penny smiled.
‘Eli wouldn’t,’ said Penny.
‘It’s just his way,’ they chorused together, looked at one another, and laughed.
‘Sorry,’ said Penny immediately. ‘It’s not a funny matter. It’s just, well, Eli, you see. He isn’t one to chat, not even to me, just like Andrew was telling you. He just says what he’s got to say, the bare facts, and that’s it. He fixed up my little horsebox. One of the horses freaked out and kicked a hole in it. I asked him if he’d do it. He came and had a look, just said, “Yes.” I hitched it up and drove it to his place and he mended the hole in the side. Hardly a word spoken, except when he refused payment.’
She smiled. ‘Besides, in not bringing me into it, Eli probably thought he was protecting me. In his way, he likes to keep an eye on me. He comes down here from time to time, he says to see the horses, wanders round and offers to fix anything obviously broken.’ An expression of dismay cross her face. ‘Oh, I’ve just had a thought. I suppose Eli wouldn’t be worrying anything could really happen to me, out here? I mean, there is generally someone here with me. Lindsey, or an owner or a pupil or Andy . . .’
The implications in the fact that a murdered woman had been found just a quarter of a mile away had suddenly struck her. Her mouth dropped open and she gazed at Jess in alarm.
Ferris put a hand on her shoulder. ‘OK, Pen, take it easy. The cops will sort it out.’
Such confidence on the part of the public was welcome. Jess hoped they’d live up to it.
During the conversation in the office, Jess had been aware of various bumps and snorting noises from the loose box adjacent. Now, as she left and stepped out in the yard again, a horse put its head over the half-door.
‘Hello, old chap,’ said Jess and put up a hand to pat him.
‘Careful,’ said a male voice behind her, ‘we think he may be blind on that side. Best to come up on him on the other one.’
Ferris had come out into the yard behind her.
‘Oh,’ said Jess, embarrassed.
‘See here,’ he went on in a low urgent voice, ‘you don’t think Penny is in any danger here? It is lonely. I know generally someone is around for most of the day but she gets here early in the morning and leaves late at night. She’s alone at those times. Horses have to be cared for. I can’t prevent her coming here and I can’t be with her all the time. I’ve got a business of my own to run.’
‘There’s no reason to believe Ms Gower is in any danger from what you and she have told me,’ Jess said slowly. ‘But she did see the silver Mercedes and glimpse the driver. That makes her a valuable witness. If the driver of the Mercedes is involved, he probably realises that, too. The horsebox she was drivin
g was a give-away to where she was going.’
‘So, he may look here?’ Ferris nodded towards the stable yard.
‘Ms Gower should just be prudent. We never release all information to the press at the start of an inquiry and the fact that she had sight of the parked car may just be one of the things we keep quiet about for the time being. In fact, it probably will be.’
‘That would suit us fine,’ Ferris replied.
Jess looked around her.
‘If you want Selina Foscott,’ he continued, pointing towards the paddock, ‘she’s down there with Charlie.’
‘Charlie is the pony?’
‘Charlie is her daughter. Good luck.’
He went back into the office.
Guard dog, thought Jess. Guarding Penny Gower. Both Eli Smith and Andrew Ferris felt they had to look after her. There were women like that, she reflected ruefully. Men felt they had to protect them. They had never felt that way, as far as she knew, about herself.
Charlie Foscott and her pony were circling the paddock and squaring up to the jumps. And ‘square’ was the word to describe the pony. It resembled a barrel on four stubby legs with what looked to Jess’s untutored eye more than usual width between its front pair. The pony also gave the impression it might refuse at any moment and the rider, a fragile figure, looked as if she knew it.
Mrs Foscott saw Jess approaching and bellowed, ‘Stop!’
For a moment Jess thought the order was directed at her but Charlie pulled up the pony immediately and Jess realised it had been barked at them. The pony put down its head and began to tear at what short grass was left amongst the mud. The rider sat aloft and stared across at Jess. She had her mother’s arrogant look. Jess, who had been feeling rather sorry for her, stopped doing so.
‘Right,’ said Mrs Foscott clumping across the mud towards the gate. ‘You want to interview me, I suppose?’