Clapping his hands together to be rid of the residue, William Oats stood back to admire his handiwork. Everything was in its place. All that was required now was the convening of the Lodge, the presence of the Grand Master, his officers and the keen initiate himself, eager to learn the secrets of the Craft.
VIII
The Scene Of The Crime
The walk to Trevitt’s farm gave Bowman the chance to clear his head. The throbbing in his temples had subsided now, but he was left with a feeling of acute agitation. As horrific as they always were, Bowman derived a sort of comfort from the fact that he would always see her in his visions. Now, it seemed, even that would be denied him. He did not know how he would cope without her.
There was still a great deal of heat in the evening sun. The air was still and close, and Bowman felt himself breaking into a sweat as he crossed the causeway from the Village to Larton Rise. Crossing the bridge over the little tributary, he stepped to one side to avoid a gang of labourers coming back from the fields. Their faces were caked in dust and dirt, their shirtsleeves and collars grimy from their toil. No doubt heading to The King’s Head for the evening, they had about them that lightness of spirit common to all with a day’s work behind them. Bowman had left Graves to conduct his interview with Florrie Cousins, then settle at the hotel for the evening. He was sure the eager sergeant would spend the rest of his night gleaning what he could from the locals regarding Cousins’ death. No doubt these labourers would have a tale to share if prompted, particularly if they were plied with a draft or two to loosen their tongues. As they passed, Bowman noticed them sharing looks between themselves. One even nudged his neighbour, none too subtly, nodding in Bowman’s direction. A visitor to Larton was a rare thing indeed, the inspector mused, sure that word must have spread of his investigation. Giving him a wide berth, the men skirted round him, but not before one of them had cleared his throat noisily and spat the resultant mucus at the inspector’s feet. Bowman heard the word “filth” uttered as they retreated behind him.
Head down, he walked on. The streets in the Rise were busier and Bowman was greeted with cooking smells from the open doors of the cottages by the road. An old man leaned on a gate, puffing at a cheroot, his beady eyes watching as the inspector passed. Seeing him from her window, a mother ran to the path to gather up her children as they played on the road, ushering them before her through the garden gate. Her eyes flicked back to the inspector as she fled indoors, and Bowman thought he saw fear in her expression. He wondered if there was always such suspicion in the air.
Crossing over the railway line where the bunting for the regatta hung forlorn and lifeless, Bowman found himself on steeper ground. As the houses fell away behind him, so the road rose quickly to a substantial height. Soon, he was looking back on Larton Rise and the Village in the distance. The houses here were grander and fewer and further between. There were great distances between them and most were set back from the road behind grand iron gates or towering yew hedges. Larton Dean had a rarefied atmosphere. The village green was immaculate, home to a pretty duck pond and well kept beds of pink hydrangeas. A proud oak stood at its centre where, Bowman noticed, a rope swing had been tied for the entertainment of the local children. He paused mid-step to catch his breath. The furthest half of the green had been given over to a profusion of wild flowers. The tall grass seemed to shimmer in the heat, ephemeral. Tall poppies bobbed their heads in warning to the ox eye daisies that competed with them for space. Bees and butterflies flitted between them, and Bowman caught a flash of a dragonfly by the pond. In the still of the evening air, before such a display of life in all its splendour, it was impossible to believe that death had so decisively come to Larton. What secrets lurked behind these tall yew hedges, Bowman wondered, or behind the rickety doors of the cottages in the Rise or in the streets of the Village, that could result in three of its inhabitants taking their own lives within the space of eight weeks?
Turning off the road he saw, as Maude had said he would, a sign to Trevitt’s farm nailed to a tree.
“Reckon you’ll want to see Gummer’s Pond first, inspector?” Bowman turned to see a barrel of a man in a patterned waistcoat walking at speed down the hill towards him. His red face was aglow in the evening sun, marred only by the broken nose that seemed to veer at an alarming angle. His black hair hung limp at either side of a wide parting from front to back. Stopping at the tree, the man hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets to regard the man before him. “Lord Melville told me to expect you.” Bowman sensed the man was somehow disappointed. “Though heaven only knows what further light can be shed on the matter.” His accent was thicker than Bowman had yet heard, all stretched vowels and rising cadences.
“I am Detective Inspector Bowman of Scotland Yard,” Bowman asserted.
“Trevitt,” the man panted, “Maxwell Trevitt.” He tapped the sign on the tree for effect, as if he were an actor pointing to his billing on a poster. He looked Bowman up and down. “We ain’t never had a detective inspector in Larton,” he sneered, “And I can’t see as how we need one now.”
“Time will tell,” Bowman replied, carefully.
Trevitt took a breath, his chest straining against the buttons of his waistcoat. He seemed to make up his mind. “Well then,” he said, decisively, “Let me take you to the tree, then you will join me for dinner.”
At least it was cooler beneath the canopy. The air however, suffused with a woody scent, was closer still. As the two men stood before Gummer’s Pond, Bowman felt a trickle of sweat run cold beneath his shirt. The ground had been uneven as they climbed and several times the inspector had tripped on an errant tree root, or found himself ensnared on some particularly persistent brambles. Clumps of nettles sprung up at regular intervals. As they stopped in the clearing before the pond, Bowman bent to scratch at a particularly nasty sting on his ankle. His forearm, he noticed, was marked with scars where branches and twigs had sought to impede his progress through the wood.
“That’s where he was found.” Trevitt was pointing with a fat finger to a large tree by the pond’s edge. “Hanging from that there lower branch.”
Following Trevitt’s gaze, Bowman stared up into the canopy. The branch was perhaps ten feet from the ground. He could even see where a loop of rope was still wound round its girth. Striding through the undergrowth, he stood directly beneath the tree and looked around. Suddenly, he was conscious of being watched. A shadowy figure was lurking against a tree, pressing itself against the trunk in an effort to remain hidden. As Bowman peered into the woods, it seemed the figure had disappeared entirely.
“He could have hoist himself up easily enough,” Bowman said thoughtfully, turning his attention back to the tree, ‘standing on one of those old logs there.” He gestured towards a heap of jumbled logs some feet away. “He might well have stood upon it to tie the rope, then kicked it away.”
Trevitt nodded, thoughtfully. “The gypsies cut and collect the wood for their camp,” he said. Bowman thought he caught a note of disdain in his voice. “I'm surprised they haven”t yet scrambled up to get that bit of rope.” He nodded up into the branches of the tree. “Nothin’s safe when they’re about. Nor no one, neither. There was bad blood between Cousins and them.” He nodded into the trees. “I dare say it might have flared into something deadly.”
“Gypsies?” Bowman raised his eyebrows.
Trevitt sighed and spat at the ground. “We passed their camp just a few hundred yards up the track.” Bowman was surprised. He had been too intent on avoiding the clumps of nettles and weeds to look about him as they walked. “Probably watching us now for all I know,” the farmer raised his voice, pointedly, “Or care!”
Bowman tried to peer through the undergrowth. “Is this the only path to the pond?”
“It is,” Trevitt confirmed, “You may take any course you wish, but that’s the least obstructed.”
“Then it's almost certain Cousins would have come this way,” Bowman mused.
; Trevitt shrugged. “As you say,” he mumbled.
“You will know, Mr Trevitt, that I am here at Lord Melville’s request. Do you share his conviction that this might be murder?”
“A man has died within feet of a gypsy camp,” spat Trevitt in exasperation. “Why would you think otherwise?”
Bowman picked his way carefully back through the clearing to gaze up at the tree again. As things stood, he couldn”t help but disagree.
On the way back down the track, he made a point of stopping by the travellers” camp. Peering through the nettles, he saw a haphazard collection of tents and caravans nestling in a natural amphitheatre surrounded by an escarpment of chalk.
“They come every year for employment,” breathed Trevitt at his side. Bowman could see several men and women lounging about the place. Two or three children ran naked around the camp, chasing one another with sticks for swords.
“They don’t look very employed,” he remarked.
Trevitt harrumphed. “They should be picking cherries from my trees,” he said, “But their leader, Stoker, has ideas above his station.” The farmer flexed his fingers as he spoke.
Bowman noticed a tall, youthful looking man, his hair tied back beneath a kerchief, standing in the centre of the camp. He seemed to be directing those about him as he drew on a long clay pipe, some to collect wood, others to clear areas of the undergrowth.
“They pitched their price too high,” Trevitt continued off Bowman’s questioning look. “And so my cherries rot as they enjoy their leisure.”
With that, the farmer barrelled off through the bracken in a sulk, seemingly impervious to the thorns and briars that snatched at his clothes. Turning to follow him, Bowman was suddenly aware of a pair of eyes staring at him through the undergrowth. As he stepped towards them, however, there was a rustle of activity and the unseen observer made his escape through a tangle of bracken.
Trevitt’s farmhouse had clearly seen better days. Bowman noticed the wood of the doorframe crumbling and peeling away as he followed Trevitt through the porch and into the hallway beyond. The tiles on the floor were obscured by dust that, kicked up as they walked, danced in the light from the windows. It hung in the air like mist, lending a diffuse murkiness to the interior of the house. Spiders” webs hung from every corner, festooned with the miniature carcasses of trapped flies and beetles, some twisting idly in suspended threads that hung from the intricate structures above them. Two dogs ran to greet the men as they stepped through the door. Trevitt shouted at them both angrily that they should “leave go,” and they retreated whence they came, their tales shivering between their hind legs.
Turning into the parlour, Bowman was met by a sorry sight indeed. A woman stood by the window, ashen faced and dejected. She cast her eyes to the floor as Trevitt entered, and Bowman had the distinct impression that she was afraid of him.
“This is the detective, Bowman,” Trevitt announced. “He’s staying at The King’s Head, but I dare say he’ll get a better meal with us.” It occurred to Bowman that the poor woman had not been informed he would be joining them. ‘see to it there’s a place set at the table, won”t you?”
The woman almost curtsied in response before she moved to leave the room. As she squeezed past the inspector, Bowman fancied he noticed the skin beneath her left eye was bruised, and she rubbed at her wrists as if in pain. All the while her eyes avoided his, as if the action alone would mean she could pass unnoticed. It was rather telling, Bowman thought, that Trevitt had neglected to introduce the woman by name. He guessed she was his wife, although there was nothing in his attitude towards her that would naturally lead to such a conclusion; no tenderness between them or looks of easy familiarity. Not for the first time, Bowman mused on how the glory of marriage was often wasted on those who least appreciated it.
When he turned back into the room, he saw that Trevitt had taken a seat. He waved in the direction of a cabinet by the door on which stood a dusty decanter and some cracked and mismatched glasses. “Help yourself,” he grumbled as he lifted his own glass as if in a toast. “After a day among the trees, there’s greater welcome in a glass than from a wife.” Trevitt chuckled at his own joke; a lazy, throaty laugh that Bowman found most distasteful. So, she was his wife after all.
Bowman stood for a time, eyeing the decanter on the shelf. He felt a cold sweat prickle on his back and his heart beat faster in his chest. Brandy. Swallowing hard, he tweaked his moustache in agitation, fighting hard against an almost primal urge that threatened to engulf him.
“What was Cousins to you?” Bowman hoped the momentum of a conversation would steer him from his impulses.
“Gang master,” Trevitt belched from the chair. He shifted his weight as he sat, and for a moment, Bowman feared the chair could not contain him. It creaked and popped as the man sought to make himself more comfortable. Legs spread wide and chin on his chest, he looked for all the world like a bloated king on his throne, sovereign of all he saw before him. “But he used to be one of them.”
“Them?” Bowman was still eyeing the decanter.
“The gypsies. Which is why he was so useful to me.” He sipped again at his drink and smacked his lips in such a way as to break Bowman’s resolve.
With studied nonchalance, the inspector sidled to the cabinet and selected the biggest glass. Blowing dust from the rim, he uncorked the decanter. The stopper slid from the mouth of the bottle with an easy action, releasing the heady sweetness trapped within. Bowman stood to welcome the scent, his nostrils wide in invitation.
“He was one of them you see, when they first came to Larton,” Trevitt continued, oblivious to the battle taking place by the cabinet. Bowman was holding the decanter up to the light, losing himself in the swirling, swilling golden glow. His tongue was thick in his mouth, his lips drying in anticipation. Casting a look at the farmer to see he was not observed, he poured himself a glass, filling it to the brim. Downing it at once before Trevitt could notice, he refilled it half way and replaced the stopper in the decanter. The brandy was of inferior quality and burned at his throat. A beautiful pain, harsh and astringent.
“They fell out. There’s been bad blood between them ever since.” Trevitt’s voice was thick with lethargy. Bowman was certain he would soon be asleep if left to his own devices.
“What was the cause of the enmity between them?”
“You’d have to ask Stoker,” Trevitt replied, haughtily. “Cousins is in no position now to tell us.”
Bowman sipped at his brandy again, savouring the drink as it slipped from the rim of the glass to his lips. “Is there anyone in Larton who would wish to see Cousins dead, Mr Trevitt?”
Trevitt gave a dry laugh. “Just about everyone in Larton is another man’s enemy, Inspector Bowman,” he smirked, “And Fletcher Cousins was a master at making them. I should say you couldn”t count on the fingers of both hands just how many might have wanted him dead.” Bowman raised his eyebrows at the admission. “But I dare say the same would apply to me, too.” Trevitt turned his eyes on the inspector. “Life is hard in the countryside, inspector. And so we live by different rules.”
“Not the rule of law, then?”
Trevitt sensed the trap. “Ay, when we can. But the law of nature has a greater hold upon us. We live by the seasons here. The crops don’t go in by the spring, we don’t eat come the autumn.” Trevitt heaved himself forward in his chair to make a point. “London is a monster. A heaving, gorging monster. It takes everything we throw at it, leaving us precious little to ourselves. The whole of the Empire exists to feed it. It's a spoilt child, inspector, and I dare say those that live there know nothing of real life.”
Bowman pressed the point. “And what is real life, Mr Trevitt?”
Trevitt sniffed. “We scratch a living, that is all. Not for us a night at the theatre or walks in the park. There’s barely a house in the whole village got running water save the toffs in the Dean.” He turned to face Bowman square on, his great chest heaving. ‘death is c
ommonplace here, Inspector Bowman. There needs no detectives from Scotland Yard to tell us that. We live side by side with it. That’s the way it always has been and, I dare say, how it always shall be.”
Bowman blinked. The brandy was already dulling his nerves. ‘surely Cousins’ death must be investigated?”
At this, Trevitt heaved himself to his feet. It took, Bowman noticed, all his effort to do so.
“You would do well to leave alone, inspector,” he boomed, “Go back to London and leave us to our ways.”
“I am here at the express invitation of Lord Melville,” Bowman stuttered. He felt the skin on his neck burn beneath his collar. In truth, he wasn’t sure why he was here at all, beyond the fact that the commissioner seemed intent on keeping a distance between them. If it weren”t for one particular detail in the newspaper reports of the men’s deaths, he would surely have been on the first train back to London. “It is my duty as an officer of the Metropolitan Police Force to investigate.”
The Body in the Trees Page 7