Beneath the Soil

by Fay Sampson

  ‘It was only a profile.’

  ‘It was him, Nick!’ She almost stamped her foot.

  ‘OK. Steady on.’ He put his hand on her arm. To her dismay she found she was trembling. She wanted nothing more than to bury herself in his embrace. But this was too public a place. She struggled to get control of herself.

  ‘And as if that wasn’t enough, he gripped my hand really hard and told me he was sure I’d have no further business in Moortown. He was warning me off, Nick. Why? What have I done? I don’t know anything about the murder, but people keep acting as though I do. And then you went off, and I didn’t hear a thing for hours.’

  She was very near tears now. Nick had his arm round her. He was steering her down the market hall steps.

  ‘I think we need to find ourselves somewhere where we can talk this over. You haven’t heard my side of the story yet.’

  NINETEEN

  Nick steered her into the Angel Inn. The pub was almost deserted at the close of the afternoon. They found a booth sheltered by oak partitions. Nick bent his head towards Suzie and spoke softly.

  ‘Look, love, I’m really sorry for leaving you. I had no idea. You looked perfectly OK up there in the market hall with hundreds of people looking on. I didn’t think anything bad could possibly happen to you.

  ‘As I said, I drifted around looking at what the stalls were selling, and I came upon this guy with fossils and amber and stuff like that. I got talking to him and it turned out he’s a really keen geologist. Almost too keen.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘Once he saw he’d got a captive audience he was away. Told me more than I really wanted to know about the Jurassic Age and the local rock formations. And yes, your tungsten deposit just outside Moortown came up. Seems he was advising the local opposition group about the risks. But at the same time you could see he was fired up about the idea of finding something really valuable on his home patch.

  ‘Well, to cut a long story short, the conversation got round to Saddlers Wood.’

  Suzie was startled out of her indignation that Nick seemed more concerned to tell her what had happened to him than with her own scary experience with Clive Stroud.

  ‘Saddlers Wood? So there really is some truth that someone is interested in prospecting there?’

  ‘Yes. This guy – Bernard Summers is his name – he says he’s thought so for a long time, but no one would take him seriously. To be honest, he comes across as a bit of a nutter. The Ancient Mariner syndrome. Buttonholing anyone who will listen to him and pouring out his theories. And yet, at the same time, he’s a guy who sounds as though he may know what he’s talking about. I’m no geologist, but he was reeling off facts and figures like an encyclopaedia.

  ‘I was beginning to think I ought to get away from him when he nobbled a mate of his and asked him to look after the stall while he took me home to show me what he’d found in Saddlers Wood.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Suzie felt her indignation returning. ‘And how far away was “home”?’

  ‘Not that far, really. Down the other end of this street and round the corner. He’s got a little shop selling fossils, and a flat over it. Honestly, you looked all right, and I was sure I’d be back before the proceedings in the square were over. Be fair. You and Tom had got it into your heads that something fishy was going on in Saddlers Wood. And here was a guy who might be able to tell me what it was.’

  His voice was rising. Suzie looked up. A group of men had come into the pub and settled themselves at the bar. One of them looked over his shoulder at the Fewings. They were not far away.

  ‘Keep your voice down. I’m not sure this is the right place to be talking about this.’

  Nick followed her eyes. Was it just because her nerves were on edge that she thought there was something hostile in the way that more of the men were now looking in their direction?

  ‘If they’re local,’ Nick said more quietly, ‘they may have heard this before. Bernard Summers made out like he was telling me a state secret, but I’m not sure he’s the sort of man to keep his ideas to himself. I got the impression that he’d bend the ear of anyone rash enough to get within firing range.’

  ‘But you fell for it.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do? This is all about Saddlers Wood, isn’t it? I reckoned you’d want me to find out what I could.’

  Suzie was acutely aware that the men at the bar were still observing them.

  ‘Look,’ she murmured, ‘I really think we should do this somewhere else.’

  Nick finished his beer and stood up. ‘OK, if it makes you feel better. I think you’ve got yourself worked up into a bit of a state about this Clive Stroud guy. Now we know he’s the MP for Moortown, there’s a perfectly good reason why he should have been at that funeral. The Eileen Caseley murder was a pretty explosive case for a small place like this. Lots of public interest, press, TV. He’s a politician. He’d have wanted to show his face.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why he was looking at me like that, does it?’

  ‘I’d look at you, if I was him.’

  ‘Nick. I’m being serious. You weren’t there.’

  ‘OK, OK. Let’s find somewhere quieter to talk.’

  She led the way to the door. Outside she hesitated.

  ‘We could go back to the car,’ Nick suggested.

  But Suzie headed across the street to a narrow lane that led down to the small river which flowed through the town. At the lower end was a water mill, its wooden wheel silent now. There was a bench at the bottom, beside the water.

  ‘Right,’ she said, sitting down. ‘So you’ve fallen into the clutches of the local nutcase who wants to tell you his pet theory about the geology of Saddlers Wood. And somehow you think this is going to explain why everybody round here seems to be looking at me as though I’ve got leprosy.’

  His hand closed over hers as he seated himself beside her. There was no one else about on the riverside path. The sound of the rushing water made a screening background to his words.

  ‘I told you this guy is a keen geologist. Well, in his spare time he wanders around the place testing out his theories. He’s been up on the Caseley farm dozens of times. And he’s convinced Philip Caseley has something worth exploiting on his farm.’ He looked at her keenly, as if expecting her to guess what it was.

  ‘Go on, then. Spit it out.’ She had still not entirely forgiven him.

  His eyes sparkled. ‘Not tungsten, though that’s pretty valuable … Gold.’

  Now she did turn to him with her full attention.

  ‘Is that possible? … Yes, I suppose it is. Didn’t they find gold in the Leigh Valley a couple of years ago? And I seem to remember reading that when Prince Charles married Diana the wedding rings were made of Welsh gold. Though, come to think of it, I haven’t heard anything about that Leigh Valley find since. Maybe it turned out not to be in commercial quantities, after all. Or perhaps it wasn’t really the Leigh Valley. The press was going wild over this secret location. The name could have been a bluff.’

  ‘Look, do you want to hear about Saddlers Wood or not?’

  ‘Sorry! I was just wondering how important it was, if it’s true. I don’t know anything about mining. I mean, we talk about “striking gold”, but I wouldn’t know if finding it is really more valuable than finding tungsten nowadays.’

  ‘I can assure you Bernard Summers thought it was. He’s picked up traces of it in a stream running down off Caseley land.’

  Suzie had a sudden vivid memory of racing for a bus. She had hared after the two boys over rough ground and nearly fallen into a deep-carved gulley. It had been a packhorse trail leading down to the road, but hadn’t there been a stream flowing alongside it over the stones?

  ‘The funny thing is that, although he could talk the hind legs off a donkey, he really doesn’t seem to have spread this around. I may have been doing him an injustice about that. At one point I got out my phone to tell you where I was, and suddenly he pulled up short. All of a sudden, the atmosphere turned v
ery nasty. He seemed to think I might be a reporter, or something. Even working for the other side.’

  ‘What other side?’

  ‘What indeed? Anyway, it was a complete turnaround. Instead of bending my ear like the Ancient Mariner, he suddenly became threatening. Made it clear that all sorts of ugly things could happen to me if I told anyone what he’d just said.’

  Suzie found herself remembering what had happened only minutes ago. That sense that a group of men at the bar were taking a keener interest in her conversation with Nick than was really healthy.

  ‘You said this Bernard Summers was a nutcase who rammed his theories down the throat of anyone within earshot. And he really hadn’t told anyone else about this? Why you?’

  Nick grinned ruefully. ‘Guess I’m just a sympathetic listener, though it was the Saddlers Wood thing that got me hooked. He’s obviously not used to finding a victim who genuinely wants to know what he thinks. And he did tell someone else, of course. Philip Caseley.’

  ‘And Philip was dead set against any mining in this area. That’s what that woman on the bus told me. Though presumably she didn’t know what he’d got beneath his own soil. She certainly didn’t mention gold. I suppose we all assumed any other find would be tungsten, like that other one.’

  ‘That’s just the point. Philip wasn’t against exploiting this. Just the opposite. He saw it as the end to all his troubles.’

  Suzie frowned. ‘Then why does everybody think he wouldn’t allow it?’

  ‘Eileen.’

  The name drifted away, as if he had dropped it into the water and the river had swept it past them out of reach. Something he could not call back.

  ‘Eileen was against it?’

  ‘So Bernard Summers says.’

  ‘And it’s her land.’ Suzie’s thoughts were going past him to the research she had done about the surnames at Saddlers Wood in the old censuses.

  ‘You were right about that.’

  ‘I only knew that the Caseleys have been at Saddlers Wood less than a century. Maybe just this one generation. Before that it was the Taverners. And Eileen had told us that was her maiden name. I guessed the rest.’

  ‘Well, you were spot on. It was Eileen who was standing in the way of Philip and a potentially viable gold mine.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Search me. I don’t think Bernard Summers knows either.’

  Suzie detached herself from Nick’s arm and went to stand at the edge of the river. She was wrestling with the implications of what Nick had just told her.

  ‘So, forget about domestic violence. Philip had another reason to murder her.’ Her voice was hardly audible above the rushing of the water. ‘Maybe that’s what Frances Nosworthy found out. Maybe I was just imagining that there was somebody else standing over her, ordering her to make that call to me. Maybe she was just warning me off because she knew now that I couldn’t help her clear Philip’s name. That all the stuff about prospecting for minerals on Caseley land was actually pointing the other way. Because Philip really is guilty.’

  She saw again the desperate look on the accused farmer’s face as he took his place in the front pew, shackled to a prison warder, for his wife’s funeral. His son sitting so pointedly on the opposite side of the nave.

  Nick stood up too. ‘Sorry. That rather knocks down a whole house of cards, doesn’t it? It puts paid to the idea that there’s some conspiracy to frame Philip and take him out of the equation, so that some evil mining magnate can get his hands on the loot.’

  Suzie was still digesting the news.

  Nick moved towards her comfortingly. ‘It’s good news in one way, isn’t it? I know you saw yourself galloping to the rescue, saving Philip from being sent down when he was really innocent. But if there’s no conspiracy, then we’re off the hook. Nobody’s been staring at you for sinister reasons. Clive Stroud is an ordinary, decent MP, going about his constituency business. Nobody’s threatened Philip’s solicitor. She’s just discovered the truth. Case solved. We can go home.’

  Suzie’s thoughts were churning like the mill race, but she let him lead her back up the narrow lane towards the street. She had her head down, staring at the cobbles, when she felt Nick beside her check and stiffen. She looked up.

  The top of the lane was blocked by half a dozen men, darkening the afternoon sunshine. There could be no doubt from their attitude that they were waiting for the Fewings.

  TWENTY

  Suzie looked them over with panicked questioning. They were all in their twenties or thirties. All dressed in tough country wear in varying shades of green and brown and khaki. She thought they were the same men who had been drinking in the pub. It occurred to her suddenly that the fresh-faced Young Farmers of the tractor pull might look like this in ten or twenty years.

  One of them stepped forward, so close she could smell the beer on his breath. There was a high colour in his cheeks. He was a burly man, and he seemed to tower over her on the sloping path.

  ‘You!’ he said, stabbing a finger towards her. ‘You’re not welcome here. We’ve seen you, poking your nose in where you’re not wanted.’

  Nick started to protest, keeping his voice even. ‘Steady on, now.’

  The man swung round on him, ‘And you can keep your big mouth shut, and all. Don’t think we haven’t seen you, taking off with Bernard Summers. He’s bad news, he is. Folk in Moortown know better than to listen to him. But not you. Oh, no. There’s some here that saw you making off to his house with him.’ There was a growl of assent from the men behind him. ‘What’s he been telling you? If he’s been blackening Philip’s name, he’ll have us to deal with.’

  Nick held up his hands in a peaceable gesture. ‘Look, guys, you’re right. Eileen Caseley’s death has got nothing to do with me and my wife. We happened to meet her a couple of days before, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, yes? So what was your wife doing at her funeral?’

  Suzie coloured. ‘I just … felt sorry for her. I didn’t mean to intrude.’

  ‘And what were you doing talking to John Nosworthy just now?’ cut in someone else. ‘He’s solicitor for the Caseleys. Well, Matthew now. It’s none of your business.’

  Suzie found a sharper edge to her voice. ‘If you must know, I’ve been organizing this tractor tow for Age of Silver. John Nosworthy brought me some money from the stalls. I’ve never met him before in my life. It had nothing to do with Philip and Eileen Caseley.’

  She was lying. There had been that strange exchange, when he had given her his mobile number and offered his help if she ever needed it.

  Nick was still trying to keep the peace. ‘Look, I can see why you might be upset. The Caseleys were obviously friends of yours. It must have been a shock. First Eileen being shot, then Philip accused of it. Of course you don’t want strangers butting in. TV cameras. Reporters asking questions. I’d feel the same. But my wife’s right. The reason we came here today has nothing to do with that. Just a charity fund-raiser. My wife works for Age of Silver. I just came along for the ride.’

  ‘But Bernard Summers has been talking to you,’ another voice put in from the knot of men behind their leader.

  ‘About geology. I was rash enough to ask questions about the stuff on his stall.’

  ‘Summers has got some crackbrained ideas. You stay clear of him.’

  ‘I don’t see any reason why I should ever meet him again.’

  ‘Best for you if you don’t.’

  Suzie could sense the hostility subsiding somewhat. Had they really believed her? Nick hadn’t told them the whole truth either. Both John Nosworthy and Bernard Summers, in their own way, had made a link between the Fewings and the Caseley murder. It had been none of Suzie and Nick’s doing. They were being dragged into the whirlpool of emotions around this case, whether they wanted to be or not.

  Only a few minutes ago, Nick had been reassuring her that many of the things she had been fearing had been the product of a too-lively imagination. That Philip Caseley was, after a
ll, guilty of shooting his own wife because she stood in the way of opening up a gold mine on his farm … Her farm. Frances’s phone call had not meant what she thought it did.

  But here were a group of Philip’s friends, fellow farmers by the look of it, willing to get aggressive with a stranger who might question Philip’s innocence.

  Nick was starting to walk her forward. It was intimidating to have to pass through this knot of muscular men still breathing dislike.

  Maybe, she thought, they didn’t think Philip was innocent. Perhaps that was what was fuelling their anger. A wound too painful to display to anyone from outside their small community.

  She should leave it alone. Go now, and not come back to Moortown for a long time.

  They were back in the street, with the square opening before them. Suzie felt physically shaken. Nick, too, was breathing fast. They said nothing to each other until they had crossed the square and found the car park where they had left their Mazda.

  It was only as they started to drive away that Suzie remembered she had left a giant cardboard cheque for £2,200 propped against a pillar of the market hall.

  ‘Well!’ Nick let out an explosive breath. They had rescued the cheque and were driving along the country roads towards home. Cylinders of hay stood ready to be collected from the fields. It was the start of a peaceful summer evening. ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest,’ Suzie said. ‘We’ve hardly done anything, and yet everyone seems to be singling us out. I’m losing count of the number of people who’ve warned us off now. And all we’ve done is go to a funeral and talk to some geology freak.’

  ‘Which makes me think that, however much I try to tell myself otherwise, there is actually something quite a few people are afraid we’ll find out.’

  ‘They wouldn’t know we’d found that survey nail at Saddlers Wood and told the police, would they? Or about what Bernard Summers found on Caseley land? You’re sure he hasn’t told anyone else?’

  ‘He’s got a very loose tongue, but he seemed genuinely scared when he realized he’d spilled the beans to me. It seems like gold’s dangerous stuff.’