by Paul Finch
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘What made your mum so suspicious? I mean there must be more than that.’
‘Nothing solid. It was a gut feeling, apparently.’ Gemma made a vague gesture. ‘Sometimes she’s a bit oversensitive to this sort of thing. All those years married to a copper, I suppose. She reckons Harold Lansing was strangely … well, to use her words, “carefree and innocent for a guy with so much dosh”. He didn’t have a driver, for example, or any professional security. Used to go fishing on his own, lived out in the sticks on his own – all that stuff. Sort of unintentionally made himself a target.’
‘But he wasn’t robbed?’
‘Not as far as we’re aware.’
Heck gave it some thought. ‘It’s a mystery for sure.’
‘Which is why I’d like you to pop down there and check it out. Just cast your eye over it. See if anything strikes you as odd.’
‘Okay.’ He nodded as a waitress handed them two dessert menus. ‘Thanks for lunch anyway.’
‘Like I say, it’s the least I can do,’ Gemma said. ‘Is Grinton having a party to celebrate the Hood conviction?’
‘There’ll be a few drinks. Low-key. I’ve told him I’ll give it a miss.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘Yeah.’ Deciding against a slice of delicious-sounding banoffee pie, he closed the menu and laid it on the table. ‘I need to catch up on some sleep.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t find the Surrey job too stressful. This time there’ll be no ticking clock.’
‘Let’s hope not.’
‘No … seriously.’ She signalled to the waitress for the bill. ‘Seems like a straight-up case. Someone had it in for Harold Lansing.’
‘We think …’
She eyed him guardedly. ‘Those instincts of yours again?’
‘And yours, ma’am. I know you of old – whatever favour your mum asked, you wouldn’t be sending me down to Surrey if something about it didn’t make you twitchy.’
Chapter 6
If there was one county where Heck’s investigations hadn’t taken him before, it was Surrey. Violent crime wasn’t, and never had been, an exclusively urban problem, but if there were any common denominators they tended to be deprivation and despair, and though Surrey wasn’t free of these, it had deservedly earned its reputation as the English county that had ‘made it’.
Though it boasted a green, leafy landscape with much agriculture, it was still densely populated; the lion’s share of this concentrated in suburban villages and affluent commuter towns servicing London. It had naturally beautiful rural features such as the North Downs, Greensand Ridge and the Devil’s Punch Bowl, but it was also home to numerous multinationals – Esso, Toyota, Nikon and Philips – and had the highest GDP per capita of any county in the UK. Heck was sure he’d once heard it said that Surrey claimed to have more millionaires than anywhere else in the whole of Great Britain.
But even by those standards, the district he followed the map to was a verdant haven, unbroken vistas of meadow and common alternating with beech groves and scenic tracts of rolling, flower-filled woodland. The occasional houses were rambling, timber-framed affairs – Tudor or Jacobean in style – usually located amid lush, landscaped parks. The house he was actually looking for, Rosewood Grange, stood alone in woodland but was a touch more modern – Georgian apparently, which only made it 300 years old – but he couldn’t see much of it when he arrived as it stood back from the road, only its upper portions, its curly gables and even rows of tall, redbrick chimneys, showing above the yew hedge and thick shrubbery standing in front of it.
According to the thirty-page accident report, there was one entrance/exit to Rosewood Grange, a single driveway, which emerged about fifty yards further on between two tall brick gateposts. Though there was no actual gate, this gateway was located at a gentle but awkward crook in the road, which would have made it quite dangerous for anyone leaving the property by car, as they’d be blinded to oncoming traffic from either direction. That said, the circular convex mirror, which Heck saw fitted on a tree trunk opposite, about seven feet up from the ground, should have been more than adequate to show whether or not the way was clear. He parked on the verge, climbed out, and took in the air. It was another warm day, billows of fleecy cloud static in a pebble-blue sky. In either direction, the sun-dappled road dwindled off beneath natural arches formed by interwoven branches. Birds twittered and insects hummed, but aside from that there was peace and quiet. He had the immediate, strong impression that traffic around here was scarce.
Despite all this, it wasn’t difficult to see where the collision had occurred, or just how catastrophic it had been.
Some ten yards along the road from the drive entrance there were swathes of torn and blackened vegetation on the opposing verge. Even now, over two weeks later, chips of paint and glass, and slivers of twisted metal, were visible along the roadside. Thirty yards beyond that, several feet past the kerb, a partially uprooted hornbeam sagged backwards into the meadow behind. Its trunk was badly charred but also extensively gashed, as though by a colossal impact. This, it seemed, was where the flying Porsche had come to rest. Heck pivoted around, surveying as much of the scene as he could. The Traffic unit who’d investigated this RTA would have done a thorough job – of that there was no question. Except that, as far as they were concerned what had happened here was an accident, not a homicide. In addition, whatever they’d discovered, whoever they’d eventually deemed to be at fault, there was no one left alive to prosecute – so how much care and attention would they really have exercised?
Heck glanced at his watch. It was just past noon, and his appointment with DCI Will Royton at Reigate Hall Police Station wasn’t due until two – which perhaps gave him enough time to make a few quick enquiries of his own.
It was a dry day with no rain forecast, and Heck was only wearing casuals – jeans, a T-shirt and training shoes. But just to be on the safe side, in case someone came along and felt like asking questions, he donned a yellow/green high visibility doublet with the word POLICE stencilled on the back before trudging between the gateposts and up the drive. He’d been informed that there was no point calling at the house as there’d be nobody there. Apparently Lansing had lived alone; he’d employed the Beethams, an elderly couple, as housekeeper and gardener, who – very conveniently, perhaps too conveniently – had been away together on holiday on the day of his accident, and both of whom were now presumably looking for jobs elsewhere. But it couldn’t do any harm to check.
He walked along the front of the house, which was very well concealed from the road by the near-impenetrable hedge, the net effect of which was to create a real air of privacy. It had five large downstairs windows, suggesting a spacious interior, though all their curtains had been drawn, which was perhaps understandable with the lord of the manor recently deceased. The front door was a huge slab of varnished oak studded with brass nail-heads, and was firmly closed. To one side of it a slate plaque bore the legend Rosewood Grange, and underneath that there was a brass button. Heck pushed it, the bell sounding deep inside the house; a dull, reverberating jangle, as though great pieces of hollow metal were knocking together – but it brought no response.
Eventually he continued along the front of the building and around to one side, where the drive became a parking space large enough to accommodate as many as four or five vehicles. From here, a paved path led him onto a lawn the size of a junior football pitch and dotted with white wrought-iron garden furniture. On the right of that, a newly built annexe was attached to the rear of the house, with a row of circular portals instead of full-sized windows. When Heck glanced through one of these, he saw an indoor swimming pool, a blue rubber sheet resting on its undisturbed surface. The rest of the pool area – the tiled walkways around it, the frescoes of dolphins and mermaids on the walls, the additional pieces of furniture – lay in silent dimness.
Heck turned to check out the rest of the rear garden, which was
even more expansive than he’d expected. Beyond the lawn lay flowerbeds and topiary, through the midst of which a central walk led away beneath a trellis roof woven with leafy vines, presumably to connect with other lawns, maybe with one of those ornamental lakes or fish ponds. Overall, it was a majestic scene; the evergreens handsomely pruned, the blooms in full summer profusion. Yet the stillness that pervaded this place, and the quiet – it was almost as if the birds themselves were observing a reverential silence – gave it a melancholic air. It could be quite a while before anyone else enjoyed the late Mr Lansing’s garden, and who knew what condition it would be in by then.
From somewhere nearby came an echoing clank.
Another sound followed on its heels: a splintering crack, like timber breaking.
Heck glanced around, expecting to see someone working – the gardener perhaps, putting in one last shift before sloping off to his new life. There was no one in sight, but now Heck spied the entrance to another wooded walk. This one was in the far corner of the garden, behind a wicker gate, which for some reason hung open. Thinking this off-kilter with the overwhelming neatness of everything else on show here, Heck strode over to it. When he reached the gate he peered along a grassy, rutted side path, which meandered through a clutch of shadowy thickets. Curious about the sound he’d just heard, he stepped through. It was amazing how, once he was amid the foliage on the other side, the sunlight was blotted out and yet the air remained warm, turning muggy. Insects droned; spiders’ webs dangled between the intertwining branches. About thirty yards ahead stood a small wooden structure, like a shed. The door to this also hung partly open.
Heck walked towards it, feeling, for no good reason he could explain, increasingly wary. The small structure was ancient, lopsided with dilapidation. Its door jamb was visibly broken – all that remained of its latch were a few rusty scraps hanging from loose screws. But it might have been broken for years; such damage didn’t necessarily need to be recent. He glanced inside, seeing nothing more than an old workbench and a few garden tools. A personal planner of some sort hung dog-eared on one of the walls. Alongside it there was a single window, its pane so thick with grime that scarcely any light passed in through it.
Heck stepped back and closed the door. Beyond the shed lay more open space, though no grass grew here thanks to the high branches interlacing overhead. Instead, it was beaten earth covered with pine needles. On its right sat a massive compost heap. So far so normal, he supposed, except that a few yards further on there was a second shed; larger than the first and in better condition. But this hung open too.
When Heck advanced now, he did so quickly. Even from a distance it was clear that this door had also been forced, but in this case the padlock hanging from its twisted hinge looked shiny and new. Wondering if he was about to make his first arrest in Surrey (criminal damage to a garden shed, of all things), he yanked the door open. Again, there was nobody in there, and nothing of apparent value: a few more tools, an oil can, a coil of hosepipe, a few tubs of weedkiller.
A second passed before he stepped back, closing the door, glancing around.
Deep clumps of rhododendrons ringed this area, further tracts of shady woodland lying beyond them. He listened, ears attempting to attune to the breathy rural stillness. When you were isolated on foreign soil it was all too easy to imagine you were being watched, so even though this was exactly how Heck now felt, he paid it no heed. The outline of the house was vaguely visible through the foliage. It was no more than a couple of hundred yards away, and yet suddenly that seemed quite a distance. He turned again, scanning the crooked avenues between the trees. He wasn’t a woodsman. If there was someone else here, he wouldn’t necessarily know about it. But the chances were there was no one. This was the countryside. Odd noises were commonplace.
A fierce clatter split the silence, like something fragile impacting on stone.
Heck spun, gazing deeper into the encircling undergrowth – and spying something he found a little reassuring. The upper section of another manmade structure stood beyond the rhododendrons; by the looks of it, a greenhouse. Was it possible the gardener was here after all?
He pushed further into the underbrush, catching his arms and hands on thorns, but coming out alongside the greenhouse, which he now saw was extensive, maybe forty yards in length, but in a poor state of repair; its windows were cracked and grubby, the basic ironwork from which it was constructed rotted and furred with moss. However, it was still in use. When he entered, he gazed down a central concrete aisle, to either side of which thick jungles of luxuriant plants grew from trays of black soil mounted on waist-high metal shelving. Down at the far end, transverse to the central aisle, stood another rack of steel shelving, this one taller than those on either side, rising to about head height and crammed with garden breakables; plant pots and the like, even a few figurines like gnomes and elves.
There was no one down there that Heck could see. He strolled forward – only to forcibly stop himself after several yards. Okay, he’d heard something. But did it really matter? Someone was working nearby. That was all it was. In any case, time was short; he’d come here to assess the accident scene, not flog his way through the surrounding woods, freezing like a scared rabbit at the slightest irregularity. Whether he liked it or not, it was time to return to the crash site. But as he swung round to head back, a flicker of movement caught his eye.
He glanced sharply to the far end of the aisle.
And saw it again.
It was one of the figurines on the upper shelf; definitely a gnome or elf, one of those trashy little objects which, in truth, he’d never have expected to find on a stylish estate like this – and it had just moved.
Of its own accord.
Heck stared in astonishment, trying to laugh it off as a bizarre optical illusion. But now it moved again – just slightly, the merest quiver. Again of its own accord.
Slowly, disbelievingly, he walked down towards it. ‘You’re losing it, pal,’ he said to himself. ‘You’ve got to be …’
The figurine quivered again, more violently, bringing Heck to a dead halt.
A few moments passed as man and manikin stared at each other, Heck’s neck hairs prickling. This time the thing remained stationary, even when he advanced again and came up close to it. It was exactly what he’d thought it was: a garden gnome, complete with beard, pointed nose, pointed ears, and pointed hat. It was about a foot and a half in height, and its once-garish colours had mostly weathered away. And yet it was hideous – so much so that he grimaced as he lifted it down from the shelf.
Where each of its eyes had once been, a black X had been etched, first gouged with a blade, and then filled in with black pen. Its mouth was a thin red line, with red trickles added to either side to create a vampire effect. Either the original paint job had run, or someone else had been handy with a different-coloured pen. For all his revulsion, Heck turned it several times in his hands, but could find nothing out of the ordinary. It was no more than a lump of sculpted, slightly mouldy plaster. He placed it back on the shelf and stepped back. Bewildered.
And then the disfigured gnome leaped at him.
Literally launched itself from its perch, and descended to the concrete floor. Its head broke off with the impact, rolling towards Heck’s feet, where it came to a rest, gazing up at him with those unblinking, crossed-out eyes.
Heck was at first too stunned to react. He gazed back down at it, then at the rack – just as another object, a plant pot, also made a suicidal leap, exploding into a thousand fragments. A second pot followed from the other end of the shelf, and then another. Heck backed away involuntarily, hair prickling again, the sweat chilling on his neck and chest. A fifth object hurtled down; another gnome – this one landed upright and didn’t shatter, but stood rocking back and forth as if the moment it regained its balance it would come toddling towards him. A sixth object went, and a seventh – more plant pots, all exploding on impact. Heck’s hair was now standing on end, but then he s
potted the culprit – the sleek brown form and whipping tail of a rat as it scuttled back and forth in the recess at the rear.
Heck sagged with absurd relief; he had to lean forward to get his breath.
When he looked again, the rat had fully emerged. It bounded to the floor and bolted away beneath the shelving on the left.
‘You get a move on, lad,’ Heck said under his breath, thanking God that none of the local officers he was shortly to be ‘advising’ had been around to witness that little pantomime. ‘There’s no wasting time in your game …’
He walked back along the aisle to the greenhouse entrance, heading through the rhododendrons, bypassing the compost heap and the two wooden sheds, and lurching down the path between the thickets. Even on reaching the front of the house, it was several seconds before he felt his heart rate begin to slow. He took a couple of deep breaths in order to regain full composure. He hadn’t discovered the source of the metallic clattering, of course, but again – did that really matter? It wasn’t like he didn’t have any real work to do.
He walked on down the drive and returned to the road, where he dug a fresh pair of latex gloves from the pockets of his doublet and snapped them into place. A fingertip search was just the thing to concentrate his mind.
Inch by painful inch, sometimes on his knees, he worked his way along the verge on the side where the undergrowth had been torched, initially focusing on the glistening debris that had been swept into the gutter by passing vehicles but then scanning further afield as well. There was nothing instantly noticeable, which wasn’t entirely surprising as he didn’t really know what he was searching for, and was still a little distracted – he couldn’t help but keep throwing glances over his shoulder at the silent, locked-up house. He still felt as if he hadn’t been quite alone over there, but about ten minutes into his search something else caught his attention, something a lot more tangible: a tiny white object gleaming amid the charcoaled roughage.