by Oliver Tidy
‘Not as far as he is, it would seem.’
‘You know what these artistic types can be like, sir – a bit touchy about their ‘art’ sometimes.’
Falkner made a noise in the back of his throat. ‘Well, now the CC is going to be taking a personal interest in proceedings, so I would advise that in future dealings with the nephew, if you must have them, you keep your thoughts about his work to yourself and concern yourself solely with policing. Make myself clear?’
Romney nodded and forced a thin smile, not trusting himself to open his mouth. That little shit Crawford minor was going to rue the day he blabbed to uncle, told tales and flexed his influence.
‘Unfortunately, the station’s reputation has not yet recovered from the disgrace that Detective Sergeant Wilkie brought on us all and I, for one, don’t want us to be courting further trouble or attention. We’re still under area’s spotlight. We’ve got to be perfect, Tom: thorough, effective, fair, cooperative and above all everything by the book. It’s called modern policing, Tom, and we simply must embrace it. Resistance, as they say, is futile.’ Perhaps thinking he’d overdone his admonishment, he tried a smile. It looked horribly false and forced. ‘It’s no longer simply about results.’ And now he had allowed a hint of nostalgic melancholy for the old days and the old ways to cloud his features and his tone. ‘Actually,’ he said, sitting down and looking almost as though he were a little tired of his charade, ‘it’s been like that for a good while now, generally, and we’ve got to catch up, or perish in the culls. It’s all about accountability for this and accountability for that. I read somewhere, a little while ago, that accountants were responsible for ruining everything. I wonder sometimes if that were not just an unfortunate typographical error and it should have read ‘accountability’. But whether we like it or not, it’s here to stay, so we’d better get used to it, even if we can’t yet force ourselves to embrace it with love.’
*
Romney entered the offices of CID with Falkner’s unsettling little pep-talk and associated reverie still troubling him. They were all present and correct, he noticed. And three of them had disposable coffee cups advertising the establishment he had intended to visit. He recollected with a pang of annoyance that he had been denied his liquid breakfast. It was something else to hold against Crawford minor. But he could hardly nip out now with them all mooning up at him for his lead.
‘What are we doing about tracing those blokes from the car park?’ he said to Marsh. She sported a little moustache of white froth from her Cappuccino and Romney found himself perversely drawn to focus on it.
‘As soon as anyone is open, sir, I’m going to start ringing around businesses that hire out that sort of outfit. I’ve made a list of possibles.’
‘How many?’
‘Two.’
‘In Kent?’
‘In the country, sir. It’s a specialised niche market. Not too much fancy-dress call for British uniforms of the Napoleonic wars. Any luck with your memory about that face from the car park?’
The question, asked as it was in a kindly sympathetic manner, made him feel old and he didn’t like it. ‘No, but it’ll come. Just not when I’m searching for it.’
Grimes was blowing noisily on his latte.
‘Did you manage to speak with the historian in charge of choreographing the battle, yet?’ said Romney to him.
‘Godfrey Wilson? Sounds like a character out of Dads Army. He’s coming in to see me this morning, gov. I couldn’t find him last night in the crowd so I rang him at home.’
‘With a name like Godfrey I would expect him to be about a hundred and four,’ said Marsh.
‘Who, in the last century, would be moved to call their kid Godfrey? Name like that should have been made illegal. It’s a form of child cruelty.’ said Grimes, following his observation with a little cackle.
‘My nephew was christened Godfrey Spicer only last year,’ said Detective Constable Spicer, looking up from opposite Grimes with a combination of injured and insulted distorting his pinched features. There was a long, awkward and very quiet pause as the little group digested this information before Spicer burst out laughing and pointed at Grimes who deflated visibly, called him a name and then threw something at him.
Romney shook his head, again the disappointed adult. ‘Come and find me when you’ve spoken to the uniform hirers,’ he said to Marsh. He turned and left them staring at his back.
‘What’s the matter with the DI these days?’ said Grimes. ‘He always used to be up for a bit of a laugh before you arrived, Sarge. No offence.’ He caught Spicer’s eye and winked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Marsh. ‘Maybe he just grew up, eh?’
She put her head down to her work while Grimes made a face in Spicer’s direction. But Grimes was right. Romney had become testy of late. It was like he hadn’t been able to come to terms with something that permanently niggled him. It could have been the death of the young woman suffering from Down’s syndrome that he was inadvertently responsible for, or it could have been the unceremonious dumping by the ex-girlfriend for an ex-boyfriend. It could have been that his injuries sustained in the line of duty were taking longer to heal completely than he would like and it made him feel his age, or stopped him doing things. It could have been the flak that he and the station had come in for in the official ‘Wilkie-gate’ post mortem. She also wondered, seeing as she knew he had been summoned up to the top floor on arrival, whether Hugo Crawford had followed through with his threats and he had been hauled over the coals by the super for his inflammatory comments. Whatever it was, she did hope that he would get over it soon. It was casting a shadow over the department.
By mid-morning the police knew that military historian Godfrey Wilson, aged thirty-two, handsome, dynamic, charismatic, knowledgeable, engaging and passionate about his subject had in no way, shape or form suggested, organised, hinted at or encouraged any level of physical violence in the previous day’s choreographed action. As the man who had planned and orchestrated the engagement of the two opposing armies, he had been appalled to witness the results of certain over-zealous fighters. He felt sure, having been involved in several historical re-enactment projects of a similar nature, that a rogue element had been responsible for the injuries and the death, although he was unable to point the finger specifically at anyone. He begged to be allowed to see the filming, where he promised he could be of much greater help and was devastated to learn of the theft of all of it.
The police also learned that a Maidstone company specialising in supplying army uniforms ‘From any period. For any occasion.’ had rented five Napoleonic costumes recently as one private hire. This was indeed good news as far as the investigation was concerned because the only other company which might have been able to help them with their enquiries was based in Newcastle. Romney told Marsh to get back to them and tell them to expect a visit from the police later in the day.
*
By the time they left the station for Maidstone, the thickly menacing cloud cover of the early morning had turned to a light drizzle. The Indian summer had, apparently, realised its mistake and quietly left.
Romney told Marsh to make a detour to the castle before they got on the road for Maidstone. The reason – that he had a few questions to put to people – induced feelings of anxiety in Marsh.
Romney made Marsh drive while he wedged himself, awkwardly thought Marsh, against the passenger door so that he was half turned towards her. She assumed he had adopted this position because he wanted to talk to her, but during the short drive up to the castle he was largely silent and just stared out of the rain spattered windscreen, apparently miles away.
A more visible security presence was in evidence at the castle. The effect obviously being hoped for was that Samson Security was to be seen stepping up its game in the wake of recent events. Romney joked to Marsh without humour that when he had mentioned the shutting of stable doors the previous evening to Wilkie he must have taken him more seriously t
han he meant.
At the entrance to the hastily cordoned grassed car park created for the film shoot, a man wearing the day-glow orange vest of Samson Security stood clutching a clipboard and sheltering under an umbrella. The day before, the space had been wide open with people free to come and go as they pleased. He waved them to a stop and demanded to see identification and authorisation for their visit. They flashed their warrant cards to which the man responded that because their names weren’t on his list, he would have to radio through for permission to let them in. Romney quickly led him to understand that their warrant cards served as both and that he should hurry up and raise his bloody barrier – what looked to Marsh like two broom handles lashed together with duct-tape – before he got himself arrested for obstruction. This was twenty-first century Britain not some feudal Sicilian enclave where the law meant nothing. The man complained defensively that he was only doing what he had been told to do by his boss. Romney suggested, not politely, that he should perhaps take a few moments for a reality check and to brush up on English law, if he were thinking of pursuing a career in security.
Marsh sighed inwardly. Here we go again, she thought. They weren’t even across the boundary line and Romney was rubbing the help up the wrong way.
They picked their way across the spongy turf, through an opening in the castle wall and on to Samson Security’s site office.
Romney told her he had a couple of questions for the man in charge. He had said this with a malevolent grin twisting his features.
Marsh strongly suspected Romney’s motives. She believed that as much as finding answers to any genuine questions that may further their enquiries the DI was just as interested in seeing how Wilkie was bearing up after his company’s apparent failings of the previous day.
Such behaviour would fit with Romney’s unpleasant side that she’d learnt something of first hand when he had deliberately trodden dog excrement into the deep, white and expensive pile of a murder suspect’s carpet during a previous investigation. As they walked she mentally braced herself for more unnecessary and unhelpful spitefulness.
Romney didn’t knock. They walked in through the open door of the temporary cabin office to find Wilkie alone and studying paperwork. He looked up at their entrance, apparently expecting them and anything but happy to see them. The man on the barrier must have let him know they were coming. Romney wiped his muddy shoes exaggeratedly on the mat and then shook the water off his umbrella all over the floor before commencing to rattle Wilkie’s cage.
Standing on no ceremony, he said, ‘As I was passing, I thought I’d see if there was any news on the missing film?’
Wilkie remained seated, his unsettling gaze fixed on Romney. Having once been the law, he was never going to be intimidated or fooled by it. ‘Didn’t you say last night that it’s now a police matter? Why would I involve Samson Security in that? I’ve got better things to do with the company’s time and resources.’
Romney took a moment to let his gaze wander around the stuffy, cramped and grubby little space. ‘Of course you have, Brian.’ Romney’s tone was text-book patronising. ‘Just wondered if they’d turned up, or you’d heard anything, that’s all. Also, as they went missing on your watch, I suppose I expected Samson Security to be looking to save a bit of face, not to mention some legal trouble with the film company when their lawyers start making noises and representations about your failings. Still, I’m sure you’ve got all your insurances in place. Is that what you’re busy with now?’ Romney made a show of looking over at Wilkie’s cluttered desk. Wilkie reacted by leaning forward and folding his arms across it.
As an observer Marsh was thoroughly disappointed but not surprised.
Wilkie looked like someone had turned the heat up under his chair. ‘I haven’t heard anything about the missing film. Do you want anything else?’ Wilkie maintained a controlled and neutral tone.
‘Actually, yes. The theft of the film aside, we still have a murder to investigate.’
Wilkie continued to simmer. ‘I hope you’re not going to start suggesting that Samson Security is in any way culpable for that? What went on on that field was out of our control and out of our jurisdiction.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ said Romney, ‘but just to give you a friendly heads up, you should know that we’re investigating the possibility, actually make that the probability, that whoever was responsible for the death of that man was not part of the official re-enactment. We have good reason to believe that a small group of men who managed to get hold of costumes of the period just waltzed through security here, got themselves down on the field, had their idea of fun, and then walked away laughing and joking. I should know because we bumped into them in the car park and on their merry way before the alarm was raised. I don’t know where your blokes were at the time. Maybe it was their tea-break. Anyway, that’ll all come out in our investigation, no doubt.’
Marsh switched her attention between Romney’s obvious sadistic enjoyment of this little bombshell and Wilkie’s reaction to it. It was a quiet and tense few seconds.
‘Can you prove any of that?’ said Wilkie, at last.
‘Working on it, Brian. Working on it. If you hear anything you’ll let us know, won’t you?’
Romney didn’t wait for a reply. He wheeled around and left leaving Marsh and Wilkie staring at each other in the ensuing silence.
‘You got something to say to me?’ said Wilkie.
Marsh forced herself to say nothing, express nothing, just turn and walk out. Something in Wilkie’s stare; something in his barely concealed hatred for her and what she obviously stood for to him had reached deep into her and disturbed her. She saw in that fleeting moment when their eyes locked that he would never forget her and what he believed her role to have been in his fall from grace. She knew that he would always harbour a deep and malicious grudge towards her and that one day, if he ever got his chance, he would have a reckoning with her. As she strode quickly to catch up with Romney, she realised that despite the coolness that came with the rain, she was perspiring and that her heart rate had increased. She also realised that Wilkie had frightened her.
Next on Romney’s list of people to upset was Hugo Crawford. Romney was like some cantankerous old hospital doctor doing his rounds determined to leave no one that he encountered in his work pleased for the experience. He popped his head through the opening of the tent they had had their meeting in the night before to be told that because of the change in the weather the young director and his entourage were within the castle walls working on an interior scene.
Unable to resist it, Romney said, ‘Animal or building?’
Romney was told building.
‘Mind me asking what we’re doing here, sir?’ said Marsh, as she followed him through the channels and openings in search of Crawford. She had been under the impression that they were to visit the castle to pursue their enquiries, but now she was experiencing a sense of foreboding. If Romney was coming up here simply to bait Hugo Crawford and make sport of Wilkie, she didn’t really want anything at all to do with it.
‘Something I need to ask Crawford.’
None the wiser, nor comforted, she could do little other than follow on dragging her suspicions and anxieties behind her.
They followed signs and increased activity into the bowels of the castle. They were stopped by Samson Security employees and forced to show identification twice more. Eventually, they found themselves within a large stone-walled enclosure that carried the stench and noises of contained livestock.
The police heard before they smelt before they saw sheep, cows, goats, pigs and horses, penned and tethered.
Carefully, they picked their way across the carpet of compacted and soiled straw towards where lights blazed and human activity was centred.
Unnoticed they came up behind a huddle of people. Hugo Crawford’s unmistakeable public school tones were necessarily raised above the general intrusive din of the confined and probably anxious animals.
As they found themselves an angle to view the focus of the action and wait for Crawford to become available, Marsh was dumb-struck to see the unmistakeable boyish features of a household-name actor dressed in a uniform of the Napoleonic period listening attentively to Crawford’s direction. He was a lot shorter than he looked on the telly.
‘Now, Rupert, what I want to see is you looking a combination of furtive, guilty and aroused, as you run your eyes and hands over the flanks of the sheep. I want to feel your sexual tension, your sexual frustration. I want to understand your lust and your irrepressible desire to join with one of these lucky creatures. I want to believe in you, Rupert. Talk to them. Caress them. I want to know that you know that what you are about to do is wrong. It’s against God, against morality and the law. You’ll surely swing for it if you’re caught, but you can’t fight it. Understand me? You must have her.’ Rupert nodded, his fierce concentration clouding his thoughtful and handsome face.
And all Marsh could think was don’t do it, Rupert. You might be an actor; it might be just a job, just a part to play; you might need the money, but don’t do it, Rupert. You are surely destined for greater things, higher things, Hollywood even. You will never live down the reputation and the sniping that you were desperate enough – financially or sexually – to rut with something on four legs. People will never forget it and they will never let you forget it. You are a fine and successful actor with a bright shining future. Don’t throw it all away on a whim, or an artistic statement. It’s what they would all remember you for. Surely you don’t need to stoop to this, or that ewe. Look what happened to Charlton Heston after he French-kissed a monkey making Planet of the Apes.
To illustrate a point he was making, Crawford, clearly no stranger to farm animals, got himself behind a fat ewe, grabbed two handfuls of its thick fleece, bent himself at the knees and to the obvious and vocal protestations of the animal in question proceeded to simulate an act of the most base and sordid depravity. In doing so, Crawford indicated a strength that few would have associated with his frame.