Limestone Cowboy

by Stuart Pawson

  I scanned the far side of the valley with my binoculars but couldn’t locate Dob Hall. Back to first principles. How did I get there this morning? Find the road, follow it along, turn right after the pub. Ah! There it was. I’d been underestimating the power of the binoculars, moving too far. The Hall was in a wooded area but the trees had been cleared from the front to open up the view. I wondered how they won permission for that, but was grateful at the same time. The front of the house was visible, with a lawn to one side and the garage block to the other. The office and leisure complex was at the rear, out of sight. I scanned around, looking for prominent landmarks, then turned to the telescope.

  It was harder than I expected but eventually we mastered it and the Georgian facade of Dob Hall with its elegant entrance portico swam into view. There were two cars parked in front of the house and a single sun lounger sat on the lawn. Keeping one eye closed was irritating after a few minutes so I used the binoculars. I don’t know what I expected or hoped to see. Sebastian prowling around the premises, proving Debra Grainger had lied? The woman herself skinny-dipping in the fish pond? I don’t know, but it was a good excuse for an afternoon out of the office, and I’d settle for that.

  I ate the chicken tikka sandwich and drank some of the water. A steady procession of walkers stopped at the Pike before giving me a friendly wave and moving on. They were mainly grey-haired couples, no doubt with matching anoraks stuffed in their ’sacks. I reminded myself that it was Monday afternoon but for them it was just another day. Perhaps there would be life outside the police force, after all.

  I was doing a sweep with the bins when a movement caught my attention. A figure, no doubt Mrs Grainger, was spreading a towel on the sun lounger. She placed something on the little table that stood alongside, carefully tucked in the ends of the towel and arranged her elegant limbs to take advantage of the sun’s rays. She was wearing a one-piece white swimsuit. I smiled to myself, wondered if what I was doing was perverted, and turned to the telescope.

  It was a better view, much better, but at that magnification, even with a tripod, it’s difficult holding the picture steady. And maybe my hand was shaking just a little. Somehow, it didn’t seem real. It was like watching her on TV, starring in an Andy Warhol film where nothing happens for eight hours. I stood up, did a few stretching exercises and watched a train crawl down the valley towards Mytholmroyd, Halifax and the rest of the world.

  I was back at the telescope, wondering whether to try the 20x eyepiece, when the action started. Mrs Grainger had turned over to cook her back when a pair of black-trousered legs appeared alongside her and their owner lowered a tray onto the little table. She turned her head away from him in an eloquent gesture, but he wasn’t to be rebuffed. He stood looking at her for a few seconds, as if saying something, then sat next to her on the edge of the lounger and placed his hand in the small of her back. She leapt to her feet, snatching up the towel, and I knocked the telescope out of focus.

  It must have been nearly a minute before I found the garden again, this time with the binoculars. Sebastian, if it was he, was stretched out on the sun bed, hands behind his head. He sat up, reached for something off the tray and appeared to down it in one gulp before resuming the horizontal position. Well, well, well, I thought. What was all that about?

  He stayed there for another five minutes before storming off into the house. I packed the gear and set off back down the hill. There’s a rather nice teashop in town, and a piece of apple pie, with cream and a pot of tea, would round off the perfect day just nicely.

  Chapter Eight

  Derek Johnstone from South Dyfed rang me that evening, one second after I’d dipped a number six squirrel hair brush into a tin of black enamel. I dropped the brush and raced into the house to answer the phone.

  “Sorry to ring you at home, Charlie,” he began, “but I’m taking tomorrow off.”

  “A great idea, Derek,” I said. “Wouldn’t mind taking advantage of this weather myself.”

  “Well, actually, it’s for my aunt’s funeral.”

  “Oh, I am sorry.”

  “That’s all right. She was ninety-one and would insist on riding her bike.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “I’ve managed to have a look at the files for the case you mentioned and I’ve put some of the relevant stuff in the post. Frankly, Charlie, it all looks cut and dried. At least on the face of it. Witnesses saw Abraham Barraclough following the girl, the blood group matched, he had scratch marks on his neck and he made a full confession.”

  Abraham Barraclough. That was the first time I’d heard his name, and Rosie had evidently reverted to her maiden name after her divorce. Good for her. I said: “Witnesses. Who saw him?”

  “Several adults and children. There’s a bit of a headland between the village and the school. The road and footpath follow the coastline round it, but some of the kids take a shortcut over the hill. The girl – Glynis Evelyn Williams – was seen to take the shortcut, and Abraham Barraclough was seen outside the school, hanging around. Later, they found her body up there.”

  I knew about the blood under Glynis’s fingernails, presumably causing the scratch marks. It sounded like the clincher. I wasn’t prepared for this interview, didn’t know which way to take it.

  “You said: ‘Cut and dried, on the face of it.’ What did you mean by that?”

  “Ah!” he replied. “That’s one small blot on the landscape. I thought you might like to talk to the investigating officer who took the statement, one Chief Inspector Henry Bernard Ratcliffe, so I looked him up.”

  “Go on.”

  “Apparently he was pensioned off on, um, ill health about two years after this case.”

  The way he pronounced the words gave them added meaning. “You mean it wasn’t ill health?” I said.

  “This was back in seventy-six, Charlie, when ill health was a convenient way of sidelining somebody with minimum fuss.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “Not sure. I’ve mentioned it to a couple of the lads who were around then and they think he was involved in the death of a vagrant in Swansea. Apparently he had rather strong views on things and didn’t care where he aired them.”

  “That’s interesting, Derek, I’m very grateful for all the trouble you’ve taken. Is this Henry Bernard Ratcliffe still alive, do you know?”

  “Pensions will tell you that.”

  “So they will. You’re a treasure.”

  *

  He lived at Crest View, Tarporley Road, Chester, I learned next morning when our pensions department rang me back. I bit my lip, dithered awhile and dialled the number.

  “Matron,” came the reply. Not what I’d expected.

  “Oh, er, good morning,” I blustered. “My name is, er, Priest and I’m trying to locate an old colleague. I was given this number but was expecting it to be his home.”

  “It may very well be,” Matron replied. “This is the Crest View Hospice. What is your colleague’s name?”

  “Ratcliffe. Henry Bernard Ratcliffe.”

  “Yes, we do have Mr Ratcliffe staying with us. Do you want me to try to find him for you?”

  “Um, not for the moment, please. Can you tell me what’s wrong with him?”

  “No, Mr Priest. I’m not at liberty to discuss a patient’s medical details.”

  “Of course not,” I agreed in my most understanding tone. “I shouldn’t have asked. Fact is, Matron, I’m a police officer, as was Mr Ratcliffe, and some questions have arisen about one of his cases. Would it be possible for me to come and discuss it with him?” I struggled to find the correct expression for having all his marbles and settled for: “Will he know what I’m talking about?”

  “Oh yes, Mr Priest. Chief Inspector Ratcliffe has all his mental faculties. It’s his body that’s letting him down. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see an old colleague.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but three hours and seventy-eight miles later I was turning the two handles on the door of C
rest View Hospice. They put two handles on the door to stop the inmates escaping. When I haven’t the wit to get round that one I’d rather be out of it. Unless… unless the idea is that if you take both hands off the Zimmer frame you fall to the floor. I shuddered and pushed the door open.

  It was an old building, probably built in the thirties, but the inside was shiny-clean and smelled of furniture polish and boiling vegetables. It was nearly lunchtime and one or two patients were already seated at a long table that I could see through an open door. I knocked on the Matron’s door, also open, and she looked up and smiled.

  “Mr Ratcliffe is sitting outside,” she told me after the introductions. “I told him he had a visitor coming.” She led me through a lounge dotted with easy chairs, mostly unoccupied, and down a short corridor. An impossibly tall, thin man coming the opposite way stood to one side and snapped me an impeccable military salute. He was wearing a red beret with a feather cockade in the front. I smiled and gave him a rather sloppy one back, like President Reagan used to.

  “Major Warburton,” Matron explained as we walked along.

  The husk of what had once been Detective Chief Inspector Ratcliffe was hunched in a wheelchair in the corner of a courtyard, catching the sun. Matron pointed to him and then left me, as if she didn’t want to be there, but I suppose she had work to do. He was wearing a shirt buttoned to the neck, a straw trilby and grey trousers that hung over his bony knees. A walking stick leaned against one of them.

  “Hello, Henry,” I said, pulling a plastic chair nearer to him. “I’m DI Charlie Priest, from Heckley, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “You and the others,” he replied, not offering a handshake.

  I didn’t know what he meant but filed the comment for later use. I nodded towards his legs, saying: “I’m sorry to see you like this, Henry, it must be hard for you.”

  “Aye, well…” His voice was clear, with a touch of gravel in it.

  “I want to talk to you about a job you did in South Wales, back in seventy-three.”

  “Glynis Evelyn Williams. That’s who you mean, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. Questions are being asked about the result. How well do you remember it?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my memory. Abraham Barraclough did it and when I stand in front of St Peter – which won’t be long, now – and he asks me what I did with my life I’ll tell him that I’m the one who nailed Barraclough. He’d’ve got life, been out now, if he hadn’t hung himself. Good riddance, I say.”

  “He had scratch marks on his neck, I believe.”

  “He had, and his blood group matched. Group B, eight percent of the population. And then there was the confession.”

  “Were any pictures taken of the scratches?”

  “No. Why did we need pictures? And they’d nearly faded away by the time we caught him.”

  “Did the pathologist look at them?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “How did you catch him?”

  “He gave himself up. We were taking blood samples of everybody in the village and he knew the net was tightening, so he walked into the station and said he’d done it.”

  “And you believed him? Every murder attracts nutters who confess.”

  “He had the scratch marks. He was dead by the time we matched the blood group, but the coroner was happy.”

  “You took the confession, I believe.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Were the words yours or his?”

  “I… helped him. He just kept saying that he’d done it, didn’t want to go into details. He saw her and wanted her, he said. She struggled and he suddenly realised what he was doing, but she was dead by then. She had blue knickers. Pale blue, not dark ones. Not navy blue like most of the other schoolgirls. He kept going on about them. That’s about it.”

  “Was he right about the knickers?”

  “Of course he was right about the knickers. Have you seen a picture of her?”

  “Of Glynis? No I haven’t.”

  “She was lovely. Lovely. Long blonde hair. A daughter any parent would be proud of, and that monster snuffed her out for his own gratification. What did you say your name was?”

  “Charlie. Charlie Priest. Why didn’t you let him write his own statement, he was an intelligent man?”

  “Intelligent! You call that intelligent!”

  “Tell me.”

  “He was a commie. Didn’t you know that, Charlie? Acommie bastard. Every dispute there was he was in the thick of it. Council meetings, championing all the down-and-outs; on the picket line with the miners the year before. Gave them cheap bread, he did. I’d have given them bullets, not bread. Shot them all, that’s what they deserved, and what happened? They brought the government down, that’s what. Democracy! You call that democracy!”

  “When I said I wanted to talk to you,” I began, “you said something about the others. What others?”

  “Huh! Television people. They’ve written to me three times, asking me to contact them. The Post Office forwarded the letters here but I haven’t replied. Why can’t they let sleeping dogs lie?”

  “That’s why I’m here, Henry. I want to find out the truth before they do.”

  “You know the truth. It’s staring you in the face. Abe Barraclough strangled poor little Glynis Williams and then hung himself in his cell. End of story.”

  “They’re going to dig him up. Dig him up so they can compare his DNA with that found under Glynis’s fingernails. That’ll prove things one way or the other.”

  “Good!” he snapped, leaning forward as if about to rise from the chair. “Good! And then maybe them and you will leave me alone to die in peace.”

  I lifted my hands in a gesture that said I was happy with his reply, and sat back to enjoy the sun, hoping to lower his guard and encourage him to tell me more. I wasn’t disappointed.

  “Paedophiles,” he ranted, after a few seconds. “That’s what they are. Paedophiles. And all you all want to do is defend them. Who defends the poor kiddies? Tell me that. Who defends the victims?” I sat forward again and he grabbed my arm. “And asylum seekers,” he rambled. “Bringing diseases with them. Aids and TB. Why do we let them in? They make a mess of their own countries and come here, and what do they do? Have loads of kids, draining the Health Service; try to make this place like the one they’ve left. So why do they come, all the Pakis and niggers? Because we’re too soft, that’s why. Send ’em all back, that’s what we should do. Go into any town and what do you see? Beggars, making more than you and me ever did, sponging on society. Scum, that’s what they are: scum.”

  I prised his fingers off my arm. “Is that what the vagrant in Swansea was, Henry? Was he scum, too?”

  “He was…” He grabbed the stick and his hands shook as he leaned on it. “He was… a parasite. Took our money under false pretences.”

  “What did you do? Give him a good kicking?”

  “Natural causes, that’s what the inquest decided. He died of natural causes.”

  “Oh, so you only pissed on his sleeping bag and let him freeze to death.”

  “He deserved everything he got.”

  “And you got early retirement on a full pension, on the grounds of ill health.”

  He nailed me with his rheumy eyes and said: “Aye, well, they got the date of that a bit wrong, didn’t they?”

  Major Warburton saw me and half rose from his chair as I strode through the lounge, but I just kept going. I’d had my fill of old soldiers for one day.

  Pete Goodfellow was sitting at my desk when I arrived back at the nick, busy with my paperwork. My In basket was empty and he’d arranged everything into four neat piles.

  “Wow, that looks efficient,” I said as I walked into my office.

  “Hi Chas,” he replied, starting to rise from my chair. “Had a good day?”

  “You stay there,” I told him, sitting in the visitor’s place, “and keep up the good work. I’ve been
to see the investigating officer in the South Wales job.”

  “Learn anything?”

  I told him all about my little talk with Henry Bernard Ratcliffe. When I finished Pete said: “So you think he’d be capable of fixing the confession.”

  “I think he’d be capable of fixing the confession, the evidence and the coroner, Pete. Even allowing for the state of his health he’s a bundle of fun. What about you? Did you find anything for me?”

  “Mmm,” he replied, pushing a sheet from the telephone pad my way. “One of the names that Rosie gave you who was in the dead girl’s class. Still lives in the village. There’s a telephone number, too.”

  “Hey, that’s great,” I said. “I’ll ring her tonight.”

  Dave returned from wherever he’d been and joined us. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with little pictures of Abbott and Costello all over it and his nose and cheeks were the colour of tomato soup.

  “Before I forget,” he began, “the brass band’s playing in a competition at Leeds Town Hall on Friday. Fancy coming along to support the boys?”

  “Er, no Dave. Count me out, please,” I replied.

  “It’s always a good night out.”

  “No, I’ve a few things to do.”

  “Pete’s coming, aren’t you?”

  “Try stopping me,” he said.

  “I can’t make it.”

  “Fair enough. So where’ve you been skiving off these last two days.”

  “Conducting investigations,” I told him. “You look as if you’ve been sitting in a beer garden all day.”

  “Someone’s got to keep their eye on the ball. I’ve been thinking about Sebastian at Dob Hall. We should have a talk to him. And Mrs Grainger. I have my suspicions about them.”

  “Ah,” I replied, unable to disguise my unease. “Fact is, Dave, I had a word with her yesterday. You’d gone out but I decided you were right: we should talk to her while Sir Morton was away. I didn’t catch Sebastian, though.”

  “Right,” he said. “Right.” But his expression was at odds with the words. He looked as if I’d eaten his last custard cream. I thanked Pete and he left us.