‘Whatever you want to do. We can do the John Wesley trail, if you like. That would be a good way of finding out about the town.’
She nodded. ‘I’d forgotten about the whole Methodist thing. Nonconformist territory, isn’t it, around here? I vaguely remember Mum insisting we did all that one holiday. Looking at Wesley’s tomb and an old rectory, I think.’ She shook her head. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Funny how we both spent our holidays round here,’ Alec commented. ‘OK, we’ll do all of that and see what the shops have to offer. The girl on reception told me there’s a ghost walk tonight, if you feel up to it.’
‘Um, maybe.’ She was aware that she was not responding with the enthusiasm Alec would have liked and aware that would worry him even more than he was already, but she couldn’t seem to do anything about it. Though she was trying to seem outwardly calm and her heart rate had long ago returned to normal, there was a little piece of her brain still switched into panic mode and when someone close by dropped a glass it was all she could do not to leap to her feet and run away.
Her response made her angry, irritated with herself. She’d been in worse situations, she reminded herself. Under greater threat, or equal threat at least. Hadn’t she?
To be truthful, she was no longer certain that was the case. Something about the way the man had responded to her. The rage she had sensed, and which had been barely contained, unsettled her. No, more than unsettled; it shook her to the very core. It wasn’t normal, Naomi decided. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t sane.
Naomi attended to the starter which had just arrived and tried to divert her thoughts. The statement had taken a while to make. First off she had presented what had happened in bald facts, trying to keep events in the right order and tell her story as clearly as possible. Gently, Alec had coaxed the finer details from her. Naomi was surprised at how much she could in fact remember. The scent of aftershave. The taste of tobacco on the man’s skin when she had bitten him. The rough skin at the side of his fingers. The lighter footsteps of the other man.
‘What are you thinking?’ Alec asked her.
‘Nothing much.’
‘Nomi?’ Alec chided gently.
She took a deep and slightly quavering breath. ‘I was going over the statement in my head,’ she said. ‘In case I’d forgotten anything.’ It was, she thought, only a small lie. Just a little omission.
He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘Forget it now,’ he said gently. ‘Let’s enjoy ourselves for the rest of the day. Tomorrow when we see DS Fine again, we may have more information to add to the puzzle. Nothing you can do about it now.’
She knew he was right and she wanted so much to be able to put this from her mind and allow herself to be distracted. She wasn’t fooled for one moment that Alec was any less preoccupied and in part she wanted to tell him to stop pretending and just give in and talk this thing to death. The more sensible, thinking part said there was no point and that Alec was right. Let Reg Fine do his job and tomorrow may well bring further revelation.
Most of all she wanted to tell Alec what she felt about the man who had come to the door at Fallowfields and she shuddered inwardly at the knowledge, pure and simple, that he would be back.
Ten
‘How far away are we from Fallowfields?’ Naomi asked as DS Fine stopped the car.
‘It’ll be … let me see. Fallowfields is on the other side of Epworth, actually a bit closer to Owston Ferry, and we’re now about a mile outside of Crowle, not far from the river Don and up at the top end of the Isle of Axholme, proper. All in all, it’ll be about eleven, twelve miles. We’re now in part of the Peatlands nature reserve. Much of a nature lover was he, your uncle?’ he asked Alec.
‘Only in a general sort of way. I don’t recall that he went bird watching or anything like that.’
‘Pity,’ Fine said. ‘This is the place for it. I saw a hen harrier here a week or so ago, brought my lad up with me.’
‘You have children?’ Naomi asked.
‘Oh aye. Two of them. Boy’s ten and the little lass is nearly eight.’
The burr, Naomi noticed, seem to have thickened as they drove further out into the country.
Alec got out, then opened the rear passenger door for Naomi and Napoleon.
‘So, what’s it like?’ she asked, turning her head and catching the sound of birds and the rustle of wind blowing through grass. There was another sound too, one she had previously associated with the Somerset Levels, an almost subliminal hiss of saturated ground. ‘Marshland,’ she said. ‘Of course. Was this area not drained then?’
‘Not completely. No, the Dutch engineer Vermuyden and his men managed to suck the water from the sponge most everywhere back there in the sixteen hundreds but there’s the odd spot wouldn’t give in.’
Naomi heard the satisfaction in his voice and smiled in sympathy.
‘There are old peat diggings all over here and on the Thorn and Hatfield moors. Anyone coming here should stick to the paths until they know their way around. They can literally end up in deep water, and that before they know it.’
‘And Rupert, did he keep to the path?’
‘It doesn’t look that way. The hikers that found him said he were lying face up about thirty yards off the track. Pure fluke that they spotted him at all. He was part hidden behind some thorn bushes and when they first spotted him they thought he might be twitching, bird watching, you know.’
Naomi nodded.
‘But then it occurs to the woman it’s a bit strange, lying on your back looking up at the sky when the sky had nothing in it worth looking at. Not even a cloud, she reckoned. Anyway, they left him to it, and walked on aways, but as they’d joined the track at Belton, and that’s a good six miles back and Thorn is another seven, eight mile further on, they decided not to go so far, so half hour or so later, they come back, intending to grab a bite at Crowle and then walk back to Belton. And there he is, still lying on his back.’
‘How long had he been dead?’ Naomi asked.
‘They wanted to know same thing,’ Fine told her. ‘They were worried that they might have saved the poor chap had they called for help sooner, but no hope of that. The doctor reckoned he’d been gone hours before. Time of death was estimated something between four and eight the previous evening, going on liver temperature and considering the night had been warm, and that’s as precise as the pathologist wanted to go.’
‘That’s not the most accurate way,’ Alec began. Then: ‘Oh, I see.’
‘What?’ Naomi asked. The best way of ascertaining the time of death was decay of potassium in the eyeball. That was very precise. Why hadn’t that been done? ‘I don’t think I understand.’
‘Crows,’ Alec said. ‘He was lying on his back. They go for the eyes.’
‘Oh my God. I never thought.’ She shuddered. She had, in her career, encountered bodies in many states and conditions but that particular variation had escaped her thus far.
‘It must have been a shock for the hikers,’ Alec said.
‘I imagine so. Look, I brought you a copy of the post-mortem report seeing as you asked for it, but I have to warn you, it don’t make pleasant reading. This is the middle of nowhere and there are foxes and badgers and the like. They don’t fuss too much over what they eat.’
‘No, I understand.’ Alec paused, taking this in. Naomi guessed that Fine would not have been as blunt had Alec not been a fellow officer.
‘So,’ Alec said, ‘is it far from here?’
‘About a fifteen minute walk, I’d say.’ Fine turned to Naomi. ‘Now, do you want to take my arm, or Alec’s or something?’
‘Thanks, but no. You and Alec walk on, Napoleon and I will follow. So long as he’s got someone leading he’ll keep me on the path.’
‘If you’re sure. It’s this way then.’
She heard them set off, feet crunching on stones and then quieter as they reached earth and grass. She urged Napoleon to follow Alec, feeling a little ne
rvous because the place was strange to her and to the dog and, being a route he’d not been trained on, he was effectively as lost as she would have been. She knew from experience, though, that he would be fine if Alec took the lead and she sensed that Alec needed that space, that opportunity to switch into inspector mode and try to separate from the raw emotions that must come with hearing the intricate details of Rupert’s death.
It was so much harder when it was personal.
Naomi listened to the landscape: flowing water, bubbling through what sounded like a narrow channel; shrieks of a bird she could not identify; and the cawing of those damned crows. She liked the Corvidae as a group, had a particular affection for jackdaws, but found herself suddenly repulsed by the thought of scavenger crows.
It was so hot. Wide, open skies and a landscape almost empty of trees made for baking heat and she wished she’d thought to bring a hat. The sound of water, bubbling and trickling on either side of her jarred oddly with the dry heat of the windless day.
‘Was it as hot as this when Rupert died?’ she asked.
She heard Fine turn. ‘No, we’d had a wet spell. In fact the day he died was a misery. The ground beneath him was still soaking when they lifted him, but the day he was found was nearly as warm as this and he’d have dried where the sun caught him.’
‘Any reason?’ Alec asked.
‘Not really. I was wondering about tyre tracks. But why would he want to come out here on a wet day? Surely there’d be better places to meet someone even if he didn’t want them coming to his home.’
‘Rupert was always eccentric,’ Alec reminded her, ‘and I never knew him mind the rain, even the sort of rain you get round here.’
Fine laughed at that. ‘You’re on to something there,’ he said. ‘If the Inuit reckon they get fifty kinds of snow, I reckon we get twice that in species of rain. But no, we didn’t find any significant tyre tracks. Tourists and hikers, and locals too, are in and out of that bit of car park all the time. It’d be very hard to tell if Rupert had driven here in his own car, especially as we can’t find it.’
‘Marcus said it was the Austin Healey …’
‘And you’d think that would be easy to find, wouldn’t you, but we’ve had no sightings. Not one. My guess is it’s either parked up in a barn somewhere or it’s under water. Frankly, we don’t have the resources to do more than put out an all points bulletin and hope someone spots it.’
‘So,’ Alec mused, ‘the best guess is that he drove here, with someone else who then left him either before or after the heart attack and drove off in Rupert’s car.’
‘Makes the most sense. Of course, he could just as easily have driven out here to meet two somebodys and one drove his car off afterwards. Right, we’re there. Mind yourself, Naomi, the ground is very uneven and there’s tussocks and humps all over.’
She released Napoleon’s harness and accepted the offer of Alec’s arm for the walk across the rough terrain. Naomi tried to imagine what it would have been like in the pouring rain. She could feel the dampness of the soil that slipped beneath her feet, the scent of thyme and bog rosemary rising up on the heated air. Alec had not been wrong about the rain, she thought. She recalled wet holidays imprisoned in the caravan, or the chalet her parents rented when their finances improved a bit. Playing cards and board games while horizontal storms raged at the windows and beat a tattoo on the roof so loud it drowned out the radio. She would not have chosen to come out here in that kind of rain.
‘He was lying here,’ Fine said.
Alec left Naomi’s side and she heard him moving slowly, casting about the scene.
‘I don’t suppose the area was searched?’ he asked.
‘Only in a general way. There wasn’t a mark on him and a phone call to his doctor suggested what the PM might show up. We cordoned the area for a couple of days, but didn’t have the manpower to keep anyone here. I’m sorry, Alec, but there seemed no need. To tell the truth I’m still not fully convinced any different.’
‘Not even after those men came to Fallowfields?’ Naomi realized she sounded indignant.
‘Why wait this long?’ Fine asked. ‘The funeral notice in the local paper had contact details for both the undertaker and the solicitor. Marcus Prescott was very careful to make sure of that.’
‘Oh, why particularly?’
‘Because Mr Prescott was anxious that anyone who had dealings with Rupert could get hold of someone. Apparently he’d mentioned some purchases he wanted to make, but Mr Prescott didn’t seem sure about the details. You’d have to ask him.’
‘So, if Rupe owed someone money – legitimate money, that is – they could have spoken directly to the solicitor.’
‘Or even gone to the shop,’ Naomi pointed out.
‘True.’
‘Of course,’ Fine went on, ‘I’m personally not ruling out foul play in one sense, especially considering those two that came to Fallowfields.’
‘In one sense?’
‘I always did find it a bit strange that he had no pills with him. My father’s got a dicky ticker and he won’t go from one room to the next without his medication. Seems to me some bugger might have frightened the old man so much his heart gave out and then took his pills away.’
Eleven
Marcus had a tiny office at the rear of the shop. With Alec, Naomi and Napoleon all present, it was something of a crush. The young woman Alec had spoken to on the phone was minding the shop while they talked. Her name was Emma, Marcus told them, and she cleaned his flat for him and sometimes helped out in the shop.
‘Sugar in your tea, my dear?’
‘No, thank you. I’m not like Alec.’
‘Sweet enough, I think.’ Naomi could hear the smile in his voice.
They had been discussing the research Rupert had carried out for his new book.
Marcus picked up the conversation where he had left it before preparing the tea. ‘Rupert usually advertised in the Axholme Herald. Occasionally he would use other local papers, but the Herald has a good circulation and usually served his purpose. They were always helpful, I believe, and once or twice even ran a little piece. Did an interview, that sort of thing.’
‘Did that happen this time?’
‘Oh yes. Rupe’s latest obsession was treasure, you know, and everyone likes stories of buried treasure. Rupe saw it all as a bit of fun. I don’t think he took the stories seriously, but they did all tie in with his writing on other stuff: the supernatural ecology I told you about. Boggarts and bogles and fen lanterns are often associated with treasure.’
Naomi recalled Marcus telling them this. ‘Did they print a picture of him?’ Naomi asked.
‘Why yes. Very flattering it was too. He looked very dapper.’ He opened his desk drawer and rummaged around. ‘There,’ he said, ‘I’ve kept the clipping.’
He slid it across the desk to Alec. ‘You’re right,’ Alec said. ‘Very dapper. He did love his clothes. His waistcoat collection must run to fifty or more.’
‘What does it say?’
‘Not a lot really,’ Alec told her. ‘“Esteemed local author” – he would have loved that – “Rupert Friedman sets off on another journey into our shared past. This time the focus of Rupert’s investigation will be buried treasure, and he would like to invite us all on his hunt.” Essentially it then goes on to appeal for local stories and oral traditions. Then a PO Box address through which they can contact him.’
‘Was that his usual way?’ Naomi asked.
‘One of them,’ Marcus confirmed. ‘When he first started out he was a bit worried about the cranks, but as time went on he worried less, I think.’
‘There’s also an email and what looks like a mobile phone number,’ Alec said. ‘Marcus, I didn’t think Rupe had a mobile. If he had a mobile, why didn’t he call for help?’
‘Because …’ Marcus opened the desk drawer again. ‘It was here, plugged into the charger. He rarely carried it with him, Alec. What he did was programme it to divert to
voicemail and any messages he had he’d respond to later.’
‘But he never carried it with him?’ Naomi would, she thought, have been lost without hers these days.
‘He considered them rather vulgar objects,’ Marcus said. ‘He absolutely hated it if he was having lunch with someone and their mobile went off. He always said that if he’d arranged to see someone then that time was theirs and theirs alone and the rest of the world could shove off for an hour. So, no, he could only see the use in having one because it meant he didn’t have to use either his home number or that of the shop. He always said he could never understand why people wanted to be tethered to an electronic dog lead.’
‘I can see his point,’ Alec said. ‘This is probably the longest time I’ve had uninterrupted by work in what … since our holiday last year. Marcus, can I take the phone, I might be able to find out who called him.’
‘You can do that? Well, my boy, take it and welcome. I can barely make a call on the damn things. Rupert took me to buy mine and we asked the lad in the shop for the most basic he had in stock. It still sings and dances and does things I don’t even understand the names of. Did you find his laptop?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘And no idea what they might have been looking for at Fallowfields? That was a terrible business. You must have been terrified, my dear.’
‘Nothing yet. We’re going back later to see if we can work out what they were looking for or if anything was taken,’ Naomi told him.
‘But to be honest,’ Alec continued, ‘we aren’t familiar enough with what was there to know for certain. We wondered if …’
‘If I’d come and take a look? I’d be glad to. I’m just so relieved that someone is finally taking this seriously.’
‘Marcus, did the police give you Rupert’s effects? The clothes he was wearing on the day, that sort of thing?’
‘Yes, yes, they did. Though, I’m sorry, Alec, I’ve not had the heart to look at anything. They’re in the storeroom. I’ll get them in a moment, but I managed also to find this. Some notes Rupert made on his interviewees. Look, you see the one’s he’s crossed out, they were dead ends, but he colour-coded the rest with highlighter pens. Red for a really good lead. Green for someone whose story he was definitely going to use and blue for something he thought worth following up but wasn’t yet convinced was useful.’
Legacy of Lies Page 6