Limestone Cowboy

by Stuart Pawson

  “Rosie,” I began. “We can’t leave it like this, and I’m not happy with you being involved with a TV company. They want a story, that’s all, and they don’t care who gets hurt. I’m coming round to see you. I’ll be ringing your doorbell in about fifteen minutes. If you don’t want to let me in, fair enough, but I’ll be there.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Fifteen minutes.” There was a long silence as I waited for her to either reply or replace her handset, but before she could my brain reminded me of a simple fact. I said: “There’s just one thing. You told me in the pub that you live on Old Run Road. It’s a long road and I don’t know the number. I could ring the station and ask someone to consult the electoral roll, but it would be easier for you to tell me.”

  After an even longer silence she said: “Two hundred and twelve. It’s number two hundred and twelve.”

  *

  On the way over I called in a filling station and bought a bunch of flowers. Pink carnations. Outside her house I wondered if they were appropriate, but decided to risk it. She lived in a small bungalow with a neat garden and her Fiesta was parked on the drive. Its presence confirmed that I was in the right place and something in my stomach did a little fandango at the thought of seeing her again.

  Rosie was watching for me and opened the door as I extended my hand towards the bell push. I thrust the flowers at her, saying: “Last bunch in the bucket, I’m afraid, but they look OK.”

  “Flowers,” she said, with obvious pleasure as she took them from me. “It’s a long time since anyone bought me flowers.”

  We had tea in china cups, with home-made carrot cake. Rosie was bare-footed, wearing red jeans and a baggy V-necked sweater, with no jewellery or makeup. That strange mixture of confidence and vulnerability struck me again and I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a date: I was here in the role of friend, adviser and confidant. But her toenails were painted scarlet and the sweater clung to her and although one shoulder was poking out of it I couldn’t see a bra strap. When she lifted the teapot and looked at me I nodded a “Yes please” and she leaned forward to fill my cup.

  I said: “First of all, Rosie, I’m not here as a policeman. I’m here as your friend. I don’t know anything about the case and if you don’t want to tell me I’ll understand, but I must warn you about any involvement with television. You want to prove your father innocent; they want a story. They have a documentary to produce. I don’t know what your father is supposed to have done or if he is innocent or guilty, but just suppose – just suppose – that he is guilty. The crew won’t go home saying: ‘Oh well, we lost that one.’ No, they’ll put a spin on it so that they become the heroes of the plot: they proved your dad was a villain and the public will get their half-hour of entertainment. Your feelings will be cast aside like… like… I don’t know, yesterday’s tea bags.”

  She sat back in her easy chair, white-faced, pulled the sweater on to her shoulder and sniffed.

  I went on: “That’s all I want to say, Rosie. Be careful, because the chances are you’ll get hurt. If you want the case re-opening there are other ways of doing it. Safer ways.”

  The picture over the mantel was an interpretation of Malham Cove, semi-abstract but still quite distinctive. Very appropriate for a geologist. I stood up to inspect it more closely and Rosie asked if I liked it.

  “Yes, it’s good. Puts my own efforts to shame, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, I’d forgotten you were an artist,” she said.

  “Mmm.” I turned and sat down again. “I used to be an art student. That’s where I learned to draw.” I smiled at her. “Then it was either graphic design or the police, and the police won.”

  Rosie returned the smile. “More tea?”

  “Ooh, go on then.”

  “They’re small cups.” She poured for both of us, then said: “It may be too late to stop the TV people.”

  “If they’re on to a story it will be impossible to stop them. Have you signed a contract or anything?”

  “Not a contract, as such. A request for an exhumation. They’ve applied to the coroner’s office for a warrant to have my father’s body exhumed, and for something called… what is it… a faculty of the diocese, or something?”

  “I think that’s just permission from the Church of England to do work on their land,” I said. “What are the grounds for conducting the exhumation?”

  “Because of the availability of DNA profiling. And they said that there are new techniques that can show if statements have been interfered with.”

  “ESDA,” I said. “It’s called ESDA.”

  It was nearly dark outside. Rosie drew the curtains and switched on the light. It was a pleasant room, small and minimally furnished, with plain walls and the odd splash of colour from a painting or poster. There were candles in the hearth and she was halfway through Pride and Prejudice. I looked but I couldn’t see a television. Maybe it’s at the foot of her bed, I thought.

  I finished my tea slowly, watching her above the rim of the cup. She drew her legs under her and gazed at a spot somewhere to the left of the fireplace, her brow furrowed. Eventually she said: “I was in the school play. Eleven years old. We were doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream and I was Mustard Seed. It wasn’t much of a part but I put my heart and soul into it. We had a rehearsal after school but I forgot to tell my parents. Dad came to collect me, as he often did, but I wasn’t ready to leave, so he walked back home alone.”

  I slowly replaced my cup and saucer on the low table and waited for her to continue. “The girl was called Glynis. Glynis Evelyn Williams, aged thirteen. Lived three doors away from us. When she didn’t arrive home from school a search party went out to look for her. They found her body on the hillside. She’d been strangled. Not raped or anything, just strangled. There was blood under her fingernails, group B, less than ten percent of the population. They tested all the men in the village and a week later arrested my father and charged him with murder. He made a full confession, they said, and hanged himself in his cell later that night. He plaited strips of material from his shirt into a rope and hanged himself. The police took great delight in telling Mum that it would have been a slow death, but only what he deserved.”

  “Have you seen the confession?”

  “No, not yet.”

  I didn’t know what else to say. Rosie’s loyalty towards her father was only what I expected, but she was very young at the time, living a childhood that was close to perfection. I could imagine the scenario. Her father got himself into a situation with a girl from the village, a girl that he knew, and ended up with a dead body on his hands. We stand on our soapboxes and rail at the guilty party, then say a secret prayer that begins with the words: “There but for…” She was heading for more heartbreak, of that I was certain. All I could try to do was prepare her for it, ease the blow when it fell.

  “Apparently you have something called noble cause corruption,” she said. “The producer told me that a signed statement could easily be faked, especially when otherwise you wouldn’t have enough evidence. It was dictated by my father, the police claim, and written down by the investigating detective. Why would it be done like that when he was perfectly capable of writing it himself?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “That’s just how it was. Probably to save time because most of our clients have difficulty spelling MUFC.” Normal procedure was to ask the suspect to sign the statement directly below the last line of writing, but many an old-time bobby wasn’t averse to asking for a signature at the bottom of the page, then adding a few words of his own.

  “There’s fitting up,” I told her, “and there’s this thing called noble cause corruption. We know fitting up goes off because there have been cases of it proven in the West Midlands and in the Met, but I’ve been in the job a long time and I’ve never met a policeman who would willingly fit up an innocent person just to improve the clear-up figures. Noble cause corruption is slightly different. Let’s say we’ve arrested so
meone for rape, or persistent burglary. You know he did it, he’s done it before and he’ll do it again, but the evidence is circumstantial and he’s on legal aid and you’re not allowed to reveal his previous convictions to the court. You want him off the streets, so there’s a temptation to take steps to strengthen your case. It happens, I’m sure. I’ve no proof but I’ve had my suspicions once or twice.” And Charlie Priest could lie for England, I reminded myself. “What I’m saying is… even if the statement is faked, it doesn’t prove anything. It might help show that he was wrongly charged, but that’s not the same as innocent. Do you know if the autopsy samples have been saved?”

  “You mean the blood?”

  “Yes, the fingernail scrapings.”

  “Apparently they’re stored in a lab in Chepstow.”

  “It’s got to be the DNA, then. That’s your only chance.”

  She thought about what I’d said, curled up in the easy chair, sitting on her feet. Wrongly charged or insufficient evidence wasn’t good enough. We couldn’t bring her father back from the dead and it hadn’t occurred to her, until I spelt it out, that neither of these would clear his name.

  “Where is your father buried,” I asked.

  She continued to stare at the carpet until my voice registered and she looked at me with a start. “Sorry…” she said. “What was that?”

  “I was wondering if your father was buried in the village.”

  She shook her head. “No. The local vicar wouldn’t allow it. Or maybe he daren’t. Feelings were high. The day after Dad was arrested the first stone came through the window. After that we had police protection, if you could call it that. Eventually we moved into lodgings in Cardiff but the news leaked out wherever we went. After the inquest Mum contacted the vicar at Uley, in Gloucestershire, where they were married, and he allowed Dad to be buried there. We moved around a bit and eventually settled in Cromer. Things were better for a while, but they caught up with us.”

  “It must have been dreadful,” I said. “Dreadful.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  I thanked her for the tea and hoped I hadn’t resurrected too many bad feelings. She told me that they’d never been laid to rest and thanked me for the flowers. At the door she said: “You think he did it, don’t you?”

  I shook my head. “Someone did it, Rosie.”

  “It wasn’t my father. If you’d ever met him you’d understand that.”

  I wanted to say that hundreds of paedophile vicars and priests and teachers and youth workers were able to indulge in their vile practices undetected because that was exactly what everybody said about them, but I didn’t. Instead I gave her a bleak smile and turned to go.

  “The producer said you’d close ranks, defend your own. Is that what you’re doing, Charlie? Closing ranks.”

  I spun round to face her again and saw that she was close to tears. “I don’t give a shit about closing ranks, Rosie,” I declared. “If there’s any way in which I can help you, I will. I just don’t want you to be hurt any more.”

  “Will you? I’d desperately like to believe that.”

  “It’s the truth, Rosie. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Chapter Seven

  “I’ll see what I can do.” How many times does the average detective say that in his working week? And “Leave it with me.” They make “The cheque is in the post” sound like an extract from the Sermon on the Mount. I drove home with the weight of the case pressing on me like I was carrying a rucksack filled with wet cement. The joys of my encounter with Sophie had fled like sparrows away from a cat. And next morning I had to face her dad.

  “Good weekend?” he asked as he breezed into my office.

  “OK. And you?”

  “Not bad. Tidied up the garden. Nearly rang to see if you fancied a walk on Sunday, but Shirley made me mow the lawn.”

  “Good for her.”

  “Did you watch the grand prix?”

  “No. Who won?”

  “Schumacher again. It was rubbish. But hey, guess what. Sophie rang last night. She sends her love. She’s bringing this boyfriend fellow up next week so Shirl’s in a right panic. You’ll never guess what he’s called.”

  “Um, no.”

  “Digby!”

  “Digby?”

  “That’s what she said. Don’t think she’s having us on.”

  “It’s a fine name. What have you on today?”

  “Watching CCTV film, unless you have anything in mind. I was thinking that maybe we should have another visit to Dob Hall while the boss is away. Maybe talk to the desirable Sebastian or even Mrs Grainger, if she’s there.”

  “What good would that do?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Shake the bastards out of their complacency, do some stirring, something like that.”

  “We can’t just go over and cause trouble. Carry on with the CCTV, please Dave, and tell Jeff to come in, will you?”

  “Oh, OK.” He lifted his bulk out of the chair and sloped off back into the main office.

  He was right, though. This morning would be a good opportunity to talk to Sebastian while Sir Morton was away in Scotland, thrashing a defenceless ball round – what did he say? – the Old Course. I’m not a golfing man. Don’t like the trousers. I presumed that St Andrews saved the New Course for major tournaments. We still needed a talk with sexy Sharon, too, Grainger’s head of human resources, but she wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.

  And that thought made something click in my brain. Is it being so suspicious that makes me a good detective, or is it the dirty mind? I logged on to the Internet and clicked on Favorites, then Google. When I asked for St Andrews it came up with nearly half a million entries in a tenth of a second. The fourth one down was the chickadee I needed.

  Hell’s teeth! It cost £105 for a round of the Old Course; God knows what it would cost on the new one. Presumably that included a free set of clubs, but I wasn’t certain. I wrote down the number, had a quick look round the site and logged off.

  “I wonder if you could help me?” I said to the charming young lady with the voice as clear as a babbling burn who answered the phone. “A friend of mine was playing the Old Course in a pro-am competition over the weekend, for charity. He’s tapped me for a contribution and I’m just making out a cheque, but I can’t remember the name of the charity. I don’t suppose you’d know, would you?” More lies, but sometimes it’s necessary.

  “The Old Course, did you say, sir?”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “There was no pro-am competition on the Old Course this weekend. Friday until Sunday it was the Highland Malt tournament. What is your friend called?”

  “Sir Morton Grainger.” Now I was glad about the subterfuge. If word got to him that he was being asked after, he couldn’t trace it back to me.

  “One moment, please…” I heard the rattle of a keyboard. “No, nobody of that name was playing. Is he a member here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s see then… No, I’m afraid we have no Mr Grainger, Sir Morton or otherwise. You must have made a mistake.”

  “It sounds like it. He probably said the Belfry. Thanks for trying.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  So, I thought, Sir Morton tells pork pies. I clicked the cradle and fumbled one-handed for my diary. A breathless Rosie answered just as I was about to abandon the call.

  “It’s Charlie,” I said. “Do you still have contact with any of your schoolfriends from back when… you know, when it happened?”

  “No, none at all. We moved away, as I told you, but I was persona non grata in any case.”

  “Right. What was your school called?” I asked for the spelling and wrote it down. “And can you remember the names of any of your classmates?” Jeff Caton poked his head round the door while I was speaking and I gestured for him to take a seat. “That’s fine, Rosie,” I said. “Let me know if First Call contact you again, if you will.”

  She promi
sed she would and I kicked my chair back away from the desk and rocked back on two legs. “That was a friend of mine called Rosie Barraclough,” I told Jeff. “Thirty years ago her father signed a confession to strangling a thirteen-year-old girl and then hanged himself whilst in police custody. A TV company is making a documentary about the case, trying to prove he was fitted up, and Rosie, of course, would like to prove his innocence.”

  “First Call?”

  “Mmm.”

  “They do true crime programmes on Channel 5, usually slanted to show what a bunch of incompetents we are.” “I think they’re using her, spinning her a line. They’ve already conned her into signing a request for her father’s exhumation, to obtain DNA samples and, of course, to make some moody TV. No doubt they’ll do the exhumation at night and organise a rain machine and lots of dry ice. If I make it right with Mr Wood will you do some leg-work for me?”

  “I’d love to, and it’s got to be more interesting than poisoned corned beef. The question is, did he do it?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I’d say she’s heading for a fall. If it were my father I’d settle for the uncertainty and believe what I wanted to believe.”

  “Me too, but maybe we can break that fall. If we only beat First Call to the truth it would be something.”

  “OK, where do I start?”

  Contacts are a major resource for any policeman, both inside and outside the force. A phone call to some anonymous officer in another part of the country will be treated with civility and evoke promises of help, but he’s a busy man and his superintendent has a bigger pull on his time than you have. But if you’ve had a pint together and are on first-names you can usually generate a little enthusiasm for your case. When I gave the talk at Bramshill I distinctly heard a Welsh accent to one of the questions. I found the course notes and thumbed through them. He was called Bryan Pinter, a DCI in Powys.