Mud, Muck and Dead Things

by Mud, Muck

  ‘Was she a nice person, Eva? Good natured? Helpful? Cheerful?’

  ‘Yes! She was a nice person, as you put it!’ he snapped unexpectedly.

  Jess was startled. She’d struck a nerve. ‘Did she chat about her private life? Did Eva mention anything to suggest she might be unhappy here?’

  ‘No!’ Jones said almost savagely. ‘She’s reliable, hard working and decent. She’s here because she wants to improve her English and she’s really pleased the job has accommodation included. Jake Westcott is talking through his hat when he says she’s taken off without a word. Eva wouldn’t do that! She was happy here. I would have noticed if she wasn’t.’

  He seemed to realise Jess was taking note of his energetic reactions and asked less vehemently, but still with emotion, ‘Do you think something has happened to Eva? Milada thinks so.’ Anxiety overtook him on the last words and made his voice wobble.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jess told him. ‘Milada came to see a colleague of mine. That’s why I’m here. Milada thinks she might have had a man friend. Did she talk about that?’

  ‘Not to me,’ Jones said stiffly. ‘I told you she didn’t talk about her private life and as far as I know she was perfectly happy. I don’t know where she’s gone, but there has to be some explanation. Perhaps she’s had an accident and is lying unconscious in hospital, unidentified. That happens. I know it does. I’ve seen it. There was a case in the hospital where I was training.’

  He’d been a medical student? What was he doing here? Whatever the reason, he wasn’t happy, not happy at all. He fancied the missing girl, Jess speculated. But she had a boyfriend, Mr Secret with the Silver Car, and, for her money, Jones did know about that, even though he didn’t want to admit it now.

  She looked round the yard. ‘This is a lonely spot. Scenic but cut off. Do you live here too, like the waitresses?’

  He shook his head. ‘I live over there.’ He pointed over her shoulders towards a clump of trees behind which a chimney stack was just visible. ‘Greystone House.’

  She wasn’t sure, with a name like that, whether the building was an institution or a private house. ‘What is that?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ he stared at her bemused, then almost smiled. ‘It’s my parents’ home.’

  ‘Is your father a landowner?’ It wouldn’t surprise her. This boy was definitely no yokel. She guessed at a public-school education. Why on earth he was working sweeping a pub yard she had no idea. It was something to find out.

  ‘No,’ Jones told her. ‘He’s a barrister.’ Now he did smile mockingly, enjoying her momentary discomfiture.

  Right, so young Jones had legal advice and representation on tap. But did he need it?

  Jess decided bluntness would play best with this young man. ‘Why are you working here? If you’ve been here a year, it’s not just a temporary job.’

  ‘I studied medicine,’ he told her. ‘I was all right until we started going into hospital wards.’ He raised his head and stared at her. ‘Have you ever been on an amputation ward? Have you seen someone quite yellow because of liver failure brought about by alcohol abuse and seen in their eyes that they know they are dying, leaving those they love, and they’ve done it to themselves… and yet, if you offered them a drink, they’d take it? I had a sort of breakdown. I dropped out. I work here now. I like it. Usually,’ he stared very hard at Jess, ‘usually no one gives me any hassle.’

  ‘And you don’t take hassle well?’

  ‘What do you think? No, I don’t – can’t cope well with pressure and I couldn’t cope with the reality of medicine as a profession. The theory of the thing is fine, even cutting up dead bodies I could manage, although I didn’t like it. But hanging round hospitals watching real people suffer, the distress of the relatives…’ His gaze slid by her and out into space, seeing something that was only in his mind.

  ‘Medicine wasn’t a good choice for you, then,’ observed Jess. ‘My brother is a doctor.’ She named the charity for which Simon worked and saw a spark of interest in David Jones’s eyes.

  ‘I’d like to be able to do as your brother does,’ he admitted. ‘I had some idea, when I took up medicine, that I might do that, go out and work for one of the charities in the Third World. But I couldn’t stick the course. So here I am.’

  ‘Not for ever, you’ll find something else,’ she heard herself assure him.

  ‘Yeah, sure. My father keeps hinting at the law. My mother hints at the church. Me? I just want to carry on sweeping up the yard, as you describe it. I do other jobs around the place, you know. Serve in the bar, act as cellar man, run errands.’

  ‘You’ve got your own transport?’ Jess asked quickly.

  ‘My motorbike.’

  ‘And you run errands for your employers on that?’

  Jones hesitated. ‘No, there’s a van, belongs to the business.’

  ‘I see. Tell me,’ Jess asked. ‘Are there any photos around, of the pub and its staff, of Eva especially?’ She could hardly ask: Do you carry her picture around with you? I bet you do, she thought, some snapshot taken when she wasn’t looking. But you won’t admit that, either.

  ‘There are the leaflets,’ said Jones unexpectedly. ‘They’re in the bar, advertising us. Jake Westcott had them printed a couple of weeks ago. There’s a picture of us all in them.’

  Advertising material! A bit of luck, at last. ‘I’ll go and ask him, then,’ Jess said. She nodded to Jones. ‘See you again.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet,’ he said sourly and turned to pick up his broom.

  A dark red 4x4 turned into the pub’s car park as Jess walked back towards the building. It joined a couple of other vehicles that hadn’t been there when Jess had arrived. The regulars were arriving for their lunchtime pints. A heavily built man, probably in his late forties, climbed down from the 4x4. He wore the uniform of the country gentleman: corduroy trousers, ancient but quality pullover over a shirt and a cravat. A venerable cap crowned his head. That looked as though it might have belonged to his father, too, thought Jess, amused.

  Too late, she realised he’d become aware of her scrutiny. He raised his eyebrows and walked purposefully towards her.

  ‘Problem?’ he asked brusquely.

  Jess was obliged to produce her warrant card. He studied it carefully before returning it to her.

  ‘Police, eh? This anything to do with that missing girl of Jake’s?’

  ‘I’m talking to… ?’ Jess returned politely.

  ‘What? Oh, Mark Harper.’ He nodded towards the pub. ‘My watering hole,’ he said briefly.

  Harper? Now, where had she heard that name before? Of course, Lindsey Harper, who worked with Penny at the stables.

  ‘We’ve been informed that one of the waitresses employed here appears to have gone missing,’ Jess said casually. ‘Is that the missing girl you mean?’

  ‘That’s the one. Old Jake’s pretty fed up about it. It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve told him a dozen times; if you take on these foreign girls you can expect trouble. Oh, they’re all pretty and they work hard, grant you that. Customers in the restaurant like having them hover around. But you don’t know a thing about them, I told Jake, nothing of their past history. You’re obliged to take anything they tell you in good faith and for all you know, they could be spinning you a real yarn. That’s what I said to him and I stick by it,’ he concluded. ‘Been proved right, haven’t I?’

  ‘Were you referring to this particular girl? When you spoke to Westcott about it?’ Jess asked.

  ‘No, to the whole shooting match, all of ‘em.’

  ‘But you knew this girl?’

  Harper was slower to answer this time. He eyed Jess and expelled a puff of air between his lips before replying. ‘Don’t know any of them. I buy my pint from one of them at the bar from time to time, that’s all.’

  ‘Do you know the name of the missing one?’

  ‘No! Yes, wait a bit, Jake called her Eva.’

  ‘You never got talking to Eva at the bar? Asked
her how she was settling in, that sort of thing?’

  ‘Why the dickens should I?’ His manner was growing aggressive. ‘They come and go, so what’s the point of asking them if they like it here? Jake will be lucky to see her again. She might turn up for her things, I suppose, or if she’s owed any wages.’

  The last point was a good one. If Eva were owed money, she would come back for it. But sadly, her return seemed increasingly unlikely. Jess remembered the distorted face of the dead girl in the cowshed.

  ‘Could you describe Eva?’

  ‘Of course I bally can’t!’ His voice rose and rang round the area. ‘They all look the same to me. Why are you asking me all this? I don’t know where the silly little trollop has gone.’

  ‘Trollop?’ Jess asked sharply. ‘Why do you call her that?’

  Harper stared at her again and blinked. ‘Decent girl doesn’t take off and leave her employer none the wiser as to where she’s gone or if she’s coming back. Now, if you’ve finished quizzing me about her, perhaps I can go and get my pint?’

  He strode off towards the door of the pub. If that’s Lindsey Harper’s husband, thought Jess, no wonder Lindsey prefers spending her time with Penny and the horses.

  Behind her a quiet voice said, ‘He really is a complete shit.’

  She turned to see David Jones. He must have overheard everything. So must anyone else in the car park area. Harper hadn’t troubled to keep his voice down. Jones had addressed his comment to Jess but his eyes were on the door into the bar through which Harper had vanished. They glowed with an intense dislike.

  ‘What does he know about any of the girls? About Eva or Milada or any of the others? He’s got no right to talk about them like that! He probably made one of his cack-handed passes at Eva and she snubbed him,’ he went on.

  ‘He makes passes at the girls?’

  Jones glanced at her. ‘He’s not the only one. He’s got less finesse than most, so I’ve never seen him have any luck. They suss him out the moment he comes into view.’

  ‘But he’s a regular?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Jake is impressed by him, don’t ask me why. Money, I suppose. Harper isn’t short of dosh.’ Jones gave a bitter little smile and turned back to his work.

  Milada was busy behind the bar. Harper had his pint and retreated with it to a corner where he was giving another regular the benefit of his opinion. He ignored Jess. Westcott was nowhere to be seen.

  Jess caught Milada’s eye and raised her eyebrows. Milada responded by rolling her own eyes towards the closed door of the office.

  Jess walked across, tapped briskly and marched in. Westcott had been on his mobile phone, but snapped it off the moment she appeared.

  ‘Oh, Inspector! Everything all right?’

  Jess ignored the question. ‘I understand, Mr Westcott, that you had some promotional literature printed, showing a photograph of the pub and its staff?’

  ‘What?’ He looked surprised and then relieved. ‘Oh, right, yes…’ He opened a drawer and took out a stack of leaflets. ‘There you go, help yourself.’

  Jess opened one of the leaflets.

  ‘The Foot to the Ground,’ she read, ‘is an ancient hostelry and although never on a coaching route, was a recognised spot for travellers on horseback to stop for refreshment. It’s thought this may be the origin of the name. Certainly the inn had this name as early as 1741, the earliest recorded mention of it. The building itself is much older, on medieval foundations, and may once had been intended as a halt for pilgrims on their way to Glastonbury.’

  The potted history continued, followed by a mouth-watering description of its culinary specialties, and at the end, at last, a photograph of its owners and their staff.

  Westcott dominated the group from the middle. Next to him stood a fair-haired woman. Milada and an older man were to his left. David Jones and the girl whose photo appeared in the passport, Eva Zelená, stood to his right. All of them! thought Jess exultantly. If she showed this around, who knew what reaction it might spark, who might be identified by whom.

  ‘Who is this?’ She indicated the fair-haired woman.

  ‘My wife, she does the cooking. She’s in the kitchen now and very busy. The lunch trade has started arriving. This isn’t a good time to interview her. If you want to see her, I suggest you come back around five.’

  ‘My colleague may come.’ Jess next tapped the image of the older man. ‘And this?’

  ‘Bert, he’s my handy man, electrician, plumber, carpenter, the lot. But he’s off sick at the moment with a bad back.’

  ‘That’s awkward for you,’ she commented.

  ‘Dave Jones is pretty helpful,’ Westcott said, ‘and reliable. He can do almost anything around the place. He’s learned a lot from Bert. I don’t know what I’d do without him, frankly.’

  Ah, yes, David Jones, the former medical student, who had almost certainly been sweet on Eva (who had been involved with someone else), and who would know all about the carotid arteries. But you don’t need medical knowledge to strangle someone, thought Jess. Still, Jones had to go on the list. He’d had a nervous breakdown of some sort, too. He couldn’t cope with what he called ‘hassle’. Like being crossed in love? Would he cope well with that? Hardly. He drove the pub’s van. He could transport a body. They would have to take a close look at that van, if the dead girl turned out to be Eva.

  On the other hand, he’d been quite open about his nervous state, almost keen to tell her his history. Because he calculated she’d find out, anyway? He had a barrister for a father and he would know how the law worked.

  ‘What do you think?’ Westcott urged. ‘About Eva, I mean. She can’t be, you know, the girl… the one who was found, can she?’ He lacked his former confidence now and was almost pleading.

  Jess stacked the leaflets carefully together. ‘Well, Mr Westcott, we’re rather hoping you can help us there. I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but as you’ll understand, there is no relative in this country we know of who could be asked instead.’

  Westcott was growing steadily paler.

  ‘We’re wondering if you would help us by taking a look and seeing if you can identify her.’

  He opened and shut his mouth a couple of times wordlessly. Then he croaked, ‘Look at this body you’ve got?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry, but we’d appreciate it.’

  ‘You think it’s Eva, then?’

  ‘We don’t know, Mr Westcott. But it’s a possibility. You were her employer and she also lived here for several months.’

  ‘Oh sod it,’ said Westcott, sitting down heavily in the Windsor chair. ‘I knew this would bloody happen. I told Milada…’ He looked up at Jess pathetically. ‘I’ve never seen a dead body,’ he said.

  Lucky you! thought Jess unsympathetically.

  She made her way out into the bar. Harper had snared another hapless listener to his views. His pointed refusal to glance towards Jess was insulting and ignorant, she decided. But more importantly, did it indicate her questions had made him uneasy? Was he now behaving like a schoolchild in class? Don’t catch the teacher’s eye, she’ll ask you something. She’d suggest to Phil Morton he call on Mr Harper at home and have an informal chat.

  David Jones had come indoors and taken up a position behind the bar counter with Milada. Either he’d been called in because they were getting busy or he didn’t want to be caught alone outside again by Jessica. He, too, avoided the inspector’s eye and entered into a lively conversation with a customer. Jess, however, managed to intercept Milada’s interested glance. Milada didn’t mind questions; she had quite a few of her own. She wanted to know what was going on. Jess rolled her eyes towards the exit and walked out into the yard. As expected, Milada came scurrying after her.

  ‘What do you think?’ She stared hard at Jess. ‘You think I’m right? Mr Westcott won’t believe it but I know better!’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Jess soothingly. She took the evidence bag containing the tumbler and toothbrush out of her
backpack and held it up. ‘Can you confirm for me that this is Eva’s?’

  Milada’s eyebrows shot up in surprise but she said promptly, ‘It’s pink. It’s Eva’s. Everything she buys is pink. I told her, buy another colour sometimes, but she just said she liked pink.’

  And when she bought a new coat, thought Jess, Eva bought a pink one.

  Chapter 9

  ‘So, now we know the identity of the victim,’ said Carter the following morning, leaning back in his chair. ‘Eva Zelená. Jake Westcott, her employer, was in no doubt about it… before he passed out?’

  ‘Bit embarrassing, that,’ admitted Jess. ‘He just said, “Yes, that’s Eva,” and then pitched forward flat at poor Tom Palmer’s feet.’

  ‘Didn’t hurt himself, I trust?’

  ‘Oh, no, we brought him round and he was all right, only a little annoyed at being made to look a fool, as he put it. He repeated that the dead girl was Eva. He’s not in any doubt. When her parents get here, perhaps we can get her father to confirm it, but I think we can go ahead on the basis of Westcott’s identification.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Carter laconically. ‘Just so long as he hasn’t any reason to sue us.’

  ‘He was the obvious choice, in the absence of a family member,’ Jess pointed out. ‘Besides, his waitress had disappeared, leaving everything behind, so we needed to know if the dead girl was the same one. Otherwise we’d have to start looking for a live Eva Zelená, wasting time and effort. We’ve also managed to get a couple of partial prints from the glass I took from the bathroom. Not good enough for evidence in a court on their own, I’m afraid, but as back-up evidence very useful. I do think we can be sure of her identity. In due course we ought to get a DNA reading from the lab. So I’ve gone ahead and informed the Czech Embassy in London. They, in turn, are informing her parents in Karlovy Vary and telling them the inquest is set for the week after next, to allow them time to get here.’

  A slight frown creased Carter’s brow. ‘They do understand at the embassy that the preliminary inquest will consist simply of a statement of the facts surrounding the discovery of the body and the identification? When the parents get here they’ll understand what it means when the coroner adjourns for us to make our enquiries? We can’t yet explain what happened to their daughter. There won’t be any answers.’