Beneath the Soil

by Fay Sampson

  ‘Yes. That sums it up pretty well.’

  ‘Instead of which, you spend an afternoon looking up applications for mining consent in the Moortown area. Has it ever occurred to you to wonder why this family gets itself involved in more crimes than the average for the population?’

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk! Who went dashing off to Saddlers Wood to find out what was going on there?’

  ‘Touché. I may look like Dad, but I guess I’ve got a few of your genes too.’ The laughter in those deep blue eyes grew warmer, more conspiratorial.

  He reached across and took his laptop again. A few brisk taps and a new screen came up. He read it, then swivelled it so that she could see.

  TUNGSTEN. Also known by its German name Wolfram. Chemical symbol W. Atomic number 74. A metal valued for its very high tensile strength and melting point. Used in guns and military projectiles, lightbulb filaments …

  So her slight memory had been accurate in that at least.

  … X-ray and television tubes …

  ‘So you think that’s what someone was prospecting for on Caseley land?’

  He shrugged and keyed in another search. He started and leaned forward with sudden enthusiasm. ‘Here! Look at this. “Because its density is similar to that of gold, it can be used to replace gold or platinum in jewellery or to counterfeit gold ingots.”’

  Suzie laughed. ‘Did you know that several years ago they discovered deposits of real gold in workable amounts over in the Leigh Valley?’ She leaned back. ‘I’ve always associated Moortown with tin mines. Like the trenches you see the remains of when we’re out walking on the moor. One of my ancestors in Moortown was a tinner. Well, I don’t mean he dug the stuff out with a pick and shovel – he was one of the leading citizens in the town – but he had tinner’s rights. He could have sat in the tinners’ parliament, the stannary court, sent offenders to the stannary jail.’

  ‘Let’s hope whoever is wanting to mine at Saddlers Wood now is playing by the law,’ Tom said. ‘Which brings us up against the old question. If someone wanted the Caseleys out of the way because they opposed the idea of mining on their land, why kill Eileen and not Philip?’

  ‘I think it’s possible the farm may be Eileen’s.’

  ‘You have been busy. So …’ Tom’s forehead creased as he stared out across the flower-filled garden. ‘Eileen’s dead. Philip’s not going to be doing much farming if he’s locked up in prison for murder. And you don’t think the son from Australia will take over the farm?’

  ‘Not from what the locals say.’

  ‘Then it goes on the open market. How about this? Laddie from Merlin Mines steps in – not in an official capacity which would alert the competition, but some innocuous sounding agricultural land-holding company. Bingo. He’s got what he wants. Mineral deposits at farmland prices. And who except Philip is going to raise a protest about mining that far out of town? Well, somebody will. But they’re not going to get hundreds of activists, like the first scheme on the edge of town.’

  ‘Do you think it’s really tungsten?’

  ‘More importantly,’ Tom shut the lid of his laptop, ‘how can we convince the powers that be that it may not have been Philip Caseley who used his gun to shoot his wife?’

  TWELVE

  Suzie was walking indoors through the French windows when she heard her mobile ring. She dived for the kitchen where she had left her shoulder bag and retrieved the phone. It was a number she didn’t recognize.

  ‘Hello? Suzie Fewings.’

  She heard the tension in the woman’s voice immediately.

  ‘Hi, Suzie. It’s Frances. Frances Nosworthy. Look, Matthew …’

  There was an intake of breath. The sentence was cut off short. Suzie had a feeling there was someone else in the room.

  Then Frances’s voice resumed, on an even keel, so that Suzie wondered if she had been imagining something was wrong. ‘Look, I know we had that conversation yesterday, but circumstances have changed. I’ve had some new information. Thank you for your trouble, but I really think you can put this behind you now. There’s nothing further to discuss.’

  ‘Does that mean you’ve found something that proves Philip didn’t do it? Oh, that’s really good news! I don’t suppose you can tell me what the evidence is? Do you know who did kill her?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The warmth the other woman had shown in the tea shop was gone. She was the formal solicitor again. ‘I really can’t discuss my client’s confidential circumstances.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I just wondered …’

  ‘This call is simply to tell you that you don’t need to have any further involvement in this case. More than that. Any subsequent move on your or your family’s part might prejudice my client’s case. Do you understand?’

  There was a little rise of her voice at the end. Just for a moment, Suzie caught something of the woman she had shared confidences with over a cream tea. She hesitated, not sure how to connect that momentary appeal with the formal warning that had gone before.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, a second late. ‘Yes, I understand.’

  She ended the call and put the phone down on the kitchen counter. She stared, unseeing, out of the window. What she was really seeing was the elegantly dressed figure of Frances Nosworthy in her crisp white shirt and black suit, the coil of dark hair falling forward over one shoulder. Those keen brown eyes. Suzie felt unaccountably shaken. After the funeral, Frances had seemed to welcome her information. She had given Suzie her business card, in case she came across any other information which could be of use. And now …? Suzie had been formally cut off from the case. Her help was no longer wanted. She had been specifically told to stay out of it.

  Why? Suzie’s curiosity itched to know just what Frances could have discovered that would mean Philip would go free. She could understand why Frances might want to keep it confidential, as she built the case for her client. But was it really necessary to phone Suzie and tell her to back off? If Philip was really innocent, then anything fresh the Fewings discovered could surely not do his case any harm? It might even help him. Why take the trouble to ring a woman she had only met once and warn her so unmistakably to keep out?

  Something else clouded Suzie’s mental image of the smart solicitor holding her phone. In her mind, a shadow loomed behind Frances’s shoulder. There had been that sudden inexplicable conviction that Frances was not alone. Who then? A partner in the firm? Frances had said her cousin John was taking charge of Eileen’s interests, as well as those of the son, Matthew.

  Matthew. A flash of memory. Right at the beginning, Frances had said, ‘Look, Matthew …’ and then broken off. Had there been someone else in the room who had not wanted her to mention Matthew Caseley? Could it even have been Matthew himself?

  It didn’t make sense. Why should Matthew Caseley, or even his solicitor, have wanted Frances to pass this clear warning to Suzie without mentioning his name?

  She paced across the kitchen, frowning. Into her mind came again that rising note at the end of Frances’s call. ‘Do you understand?’ It had sounded like an appeal, not the firmly businesslike tone of what had gone before. Had it been deliberate? Was there something she was trying to tell Suzie that would pass under the radar of whoever else had been listening?

  She shivered as she confronted the implication. Was it possible that most of what Frances had said to her in that call had been spoken under duress? Was that final question – Do you understand? – the only part that was genuine?

  ‘Yes, I understand,’ Suzie had replied. But did she?

  ‘Penny for them?’

  She was aware of Tom standing in the conservatory, looking at her shrewdly.

  She jumped. ‘Oh, just daydreaming.’

  Tom looked pointedly at the phone on the counter. ‘Something disturbing?’

  ‘No … no, just a friend,’ she said, too quickly.

  She plugged in the iron and got out a basket of laundry. She was aware that she wasn’t fooling him
. He knew she was covering up. But she wasn’t ready to tell him yet about the phone call, not until she had worked out for herself more clearly what it meant.

  And probably not even then, she thought, as she straightened a shirt sleeve on the ironing board. The last thing I want just now is Tom getting the wrong end of the stick and dashing off on another rash expedition. Not when Frances Nosworthy had asked the Fewings so definitely to stop.

  He stood watching her for long moments, then sighed, ‘OK. Your call,’ and left the room.

  For a while, Suzie concentrated on the soothing task of reducing crumpled cloth to a smooth finish. If only she could iron out the wrinkles in her mind so easily. She found herself more shaken by the call than she had realized. She felt increasingly sure that Frances’s Do you understand? had been a cry for help.

  Yet what possible help could she give?

  Should she tell the police? Tell them what? That she had sensed the presence of someone else behind Frances as she made the call? She could hear DCI Brewer’s contemptuous reply. ‘Someone else? In a solicitor’s office? How very unusual.’ Suzie imagined herself reporting the warning to stay out of the investigation. The very same message DCI Brewer had already given her. Which left what? A change of inflexion in the very last words? Oh, and a reference to Matthew Caseley, cut abruptly short.

  It didn’t sound a convincing case, even to herself.

  She picked up a tee-shirt of Millie’s.

  There was a prickle in the hairs of her arms. There seemed to be only one thing left. The very thing that she had been alarmed that Tom would do. If someone had really been there behind Frances’s shoulder, wanting her to warn the Fewings off, then surely the only course that made sense was for Suzie to go on with what she had started. She would have to find out more.

  Suzie’s fingers reached for the raspberries half hidden under the leaves, but her mind was elsewhere. The impact of this afternoon’s phone call was coming home to her. There had been something reassuring about that slip of cardboard in her shoulder bag, inscribed with Frances Nosworthy’s phone number and email address. Frances was not quite the police, but she did represent the law. It had been comforting to think that if anything else disturbing happened, Suzie could report it to the solicitor.

  Now the disturbing thing had happened – to Frances. Suzie’s slender line of security had been snapped.

  She pulled herself up short and moved further along the row of canes inside the fruit cage. This was no time to be thinking of herself. Someone had been with Frances, she was sure of it. Someone menacing her.

  A less brave part of her mind told her: Yes, and menacing you. Why else would he, that shadowy figure behind Frances, have been demanding she phone Suzie? Was it really true that Suzie Fewings, who knew so little of what was going on, was a threat? The one who needed to be silenced?

  ‘I said, “What’s wrong?”.’

  She almost dropped the bowl of raspberries. Nick was standing only a few steps away. He had his hand up, shielding his eyes from the evening sun as he stared at her through the mesh of the fruit cage. At his side, the fork with which he had been digging weeds between the vegetables stood abandoned.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was miles away.’

  ‘More than that. You look as if something’s upset you. I asked you three times where you’re planning to take me ancestor-hunting on Saturday, and you didn’t answer. You’re picking raspberries as though your life depended on it, but at the same time you look as if you’re in another world.’

  She managed a weak smile. ‘I can’t hide anything from you, can I?’

  ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

  Suzie hesitated. She had been afraid to tell Nick, though for a different reason than the prudence which had made her fob Tom off. It was true that she hadn’t initiated the phone call, but Nick had warned her firmly to stay out of the Caseleys’ business, and now she seemed to be getting drawn deeper in.

  Unless she did what Frances told her and kept out of it. The idea seemed like a kind of betrayal.

  She stepped outside the fruit cage and closed the gate.

  ‘Look, I know you told me to let the Caseley thing rest. And truly I have. Well, I looked up a few things in the library about what they might be mining in that area. But that was harmless, surely? And then I got this phone call …’

  It was hard to convey to someone else the menace she had felt behind Frances Nosworthy’s carefully chosen words.

  ‘I know it isn’t much,’ she ended lamely. ‘But I just had this feeling she was speaking under duress.’

  ‘And you haven’t reported it to the police this time?’

  ‘I don’t think they’d believe me, do you?’

  Nick stared down at her. The sun was on his face, making him wrinkle his eyes. He passed an earth-stained hand over his forehead.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Put like that, I don’t think they would. Though I’m not sure you shouldn’t tell them all the same. Just so it’s there in the record in case someone at that end ever feels like taking it seriously.’

  She felt a flash of surprise. ‘You mean that you believe me? You don’t think I’m imagining it?’

  He put his sun-warmed hands on her arms.

  ‘This is a murder case. Someone out there killed Eileen Caseley. It may have been her husband, it may not. I didn’t want to believe what you said about that man in the raincoat watching you yesterday. I didn’t see how you could be a threat. I didn’t want to see. But you talk to Philip’s solicitor, she gives you her card, and next thing she’s warning you off. It wasn’t as if you’d told her you were planning any more investigation. And if we did find out anything else, surely it would only help Philip, if he’s innocent? Whether there was somebody leaning over her shoulder or not, something strange is going on.’

  ‘So you think I should report it?’

  ‘I think I should. And if I can convince them I’m worried, chances are they’ll want to hear it from you.’

  His blue eyes were unsmiling. The grip on her arms was firm. Suzie felt an enormous wave of relief.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d take me seriously.’

  The flicker of a smile then. ‘I’m sorry if I didn’t respond properly in the middle of the night. I’ve lived with you long enough to respect your instincts. You’ve honed your detective skills chasing up all those ancestors of yours, and mine. I wish we could have kept the family out of another crime scene, but like it or not, we seem to have got ourselves involved. Only …’ the fingers on her arms pressed harder, ‘don’t go haring off and doing anything by yourself. Take that warning seriously.’

  ‘It’s Frances I’m worried about. She may be in real danger.’

  But Suzie knew that she was scared for herself as well.

  THIRTEEN

  Millie drifted downstairs in a tee-shirt that barely covered her small bottom. Tufts of her short blonde hair stuck out at unexpected angles. Her sleepy eyes widened as she entered the kitchen.

  ‘What are you two still doing here at half past nine? I thought I was the one on holiday.’

  Suzie and Nick glanced at each other with the almost childish guilt of conspirators. Neither had wanted to tell the children last night how things had moved on, how they seemed to be getting sucked deeper into the darkness surrounding Eileen Caseley’s death. They were both dressed in the smart clothes they wore for work: Nick at his architect’s practice, Suzie in the office behind the charity shop. But Nick had made the phone call he’d promised. Now they were waiting.

  The doorbell rang. Nick was swiftly on his feet. ‘We’ll do this in the sitting room,’ he said to Suzie.

  As he went to answer the door, Suzie turned apologetically to Millie.

  ‘Sorry, love. We’ve got another interview with the police. I had a phone call from Philip Caseley’s solicitor yesterday. It could be important.’

  The milk sloshed out of Millie’s cereal bowl. ‘The police! You might have told me! Here’s me in just my nightie.’ />
  ‘He won’t need to see you. It’s mainly me he wants to talk to.’

  ‘Oh yeah? So why isn’t Dad going to work either?’

  ‘Moral support,’ Suzie said, getting to her feet. ‘Husbands do that sometimes.’

  She headed for the hall, closing the kitchen door behind her.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Dudbridge.’

  The man waiting with Nick in the sitting room was smaller then Suzie expected for a policeman. He had curly brown hair and a little goatee beard. Suzie thought she recognized him as the man who had stood beside DCI Brewer in Moortown churchyard, watching Eileen Caseley’s burial from a discreet distance.

  But his expression was neutral. There was none of the disapproval she had clearly sensed in his senior officer’s attitude.

  ‘Well, shall we sit down?’ he suggested. ‘I gather there’s something you want to tell me about the Caseley murder case.’

  Suzie lowered herself into an armchair as the sergeant and Nick settled themselves on the sofa opposite.

  ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ she offered belatedly. ‘Or tea?’

  ‘No thanks. Shall we get down to business?’

  He got out his notebook, pen ready. He turned to Nick and then to Suzie.

  ‘So, which one of you wants to start?’

  ‘I suppose I’d better,’ Suzie said. ‘Nick rang you because … well, because I’ve spoken to DCI Brewer before and she seems to think I’m pushing my nose in where it’s not wanted. But yesterday something new happened …’

  Once again she told the story of the phone call. It was as difficult as it had been with Nick to describe adequately the changes in Frances’s voice. The abrupt halt after she had mentioned Matthew Caseley’s name. The formality of her warning Suzie to stay out of it, so at odds with the almost eager listening to Suzie’s information in the tea shop. And then that rise in her voice as she asked Suzie, ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘It was almost as if she was appealing to me. Wanting me to understand something different from what she’d actually said. As though she was in trouble and she thought I could help her.’