Ring of Guilt

by Judith Cutler

  Morris had once surprised me by saying I ought to have more friends my own age. Mostly I didn’t need them, but today I really did. First of all I needed someone to pretend I was going for a girly day out with. Second I needed someone to go with me on a not very girly trip: I wanted to tramp through the woods near where I’d found the body and see what was going on. Taking Griff was absolutely not an option – he wouldn’t have approved, and in any case I wasn’t going to march someone his age out in the rain on to land where people would much rather not see us. Which ruled out my father, not that he was ever ruled in, and Mrs Walker, despite her surname.

  I probably wasn’t in Will’s good books, because I’d not called him back immediately and had only left a couple of words on his voice mail when I’d eventually got round to it. In any case, breaking the law (possibly) wasn’t something you could invite a policeman to do. As for the Rev Robin, he probably had his head in the Good Book, and it wasn’t exactly an option for him, either.

  So any exploring had to be done on my own. OK, it would be risky. But there was one thing I could do to reduce the risk a bit, if only I could get clear of Griff. Even that was difficult. He got it into his head I was looking peaky, and was inclined to fuss me, with offers of hot chocolate and comfortable chairs.

  He wasn’t pleased when I had a phone call from my father, claiming he’d run out of all sorts of essentials. He dictated a list of things he needed.

  ‘Anything we want?’ I asked Griff, as I gathered the hessian shopping bags we always used these days.

  ‘Waitrose?’

  ‘Sainsbury’s.’

  ‘In that case, I don’t think so.’

  The old snob. As for me, I actually liked the Sainsbury’s run, and often ran bargains to earth. Today wasn’t one of them, so I just bundled up the items on the list and headed to Bossingham Hall.

  ‘No sign of the ring yet,’ my father said by way of a greeting.

  ‘Any news of Nanny Baird’s descendants yet?’ I asked foolishly.

  Blocking my ears against his pleas that I should help with the search, I stowed the shopping.

  ‘Lina, am I ever going to use all these lavatory rolls?’

  ‘They were on offer. Twelve for the price of nine.’

  ‘But recycled: does that mean—?’

  ‘Recycled from newspapers or something,’ I said, not wishing to go down that particular road, not with a man who thought you should be able to get full wine bottles out of bottle banks, not throw away empty ones.

  I found a couple of items to sell for him, putting the receipts I always gave him in a folder I’d bought for the purpose, and left him glued to a new quiz.

  Maybe I should nip down to Hythe – not all that far, after all – and buy Griff some Waitrose goodies as a little treat. But as I headed south, I realized I was going to be going very near the spot where my presence had so annoyed the 4x4 driver. I pulled over on the Minnis, the common land which gives Stelling Minnis its name.

  ‘I’m going to do something daft, Titus,’ I told him, down the phone. ‘I’m going to go and look round where I found that body. And if I don’t call you back by four, I want you to call the police.’

  ‘Got the wrong man, doll. Me phone the filth? Hand’d drop off if I tried dialling 999. Besides, they’d ask questions.’

  ‘You could call the AA – say you’d seen an abandoned van and thought you might have heard a scream.’ For good measure I gave the map reference.

  ‘And you don’t think they might wonder why I wasn’t phoning from near this here wood? They know all about where you make these calls, doll. Like you say, even mobiles,’ he added with a sigh. ‘I thought they couldn’t track them, but you were right.’

  ‘Well, I’m going in anyway. So if I die it’s your fault.’

  ‘It’s bloody yours, doll. Nothing to do with me.’ He cut the call.

  He was right, wasn’t he?

  At least I could drive slowly past, as I’d done before. Just to see.

  What did I see? I saw a mud-covered Fiesta, same as every other mud-covered Fiesta, parked deep under a droopy tree. The driver checked carefully in his mirrors before he emerged, cap down over his eyes, filthy Barbour collar turned up. He’d got a pair of wellies in one hand.

  ‘Just got a few minutes to spare, doll. Your dad’d go doolally if anything happened to you. Not that he isn’t, anyway. Now, shut up squeaking and get back in your car. We’ll leave mine here. One doesn’t attract attention, two might. Torch? Bloody hell, don’t you know anything?’

  Eventually Titus, with his wellies, two torches, some rope and a large scale OS map, joined me in the van. ‘We’re going round the far side, see. Then we walk through the woods, eyes peeled. And then you get in my car and I run you back to yours. Easy-peasy.’

  ‘Easy-peasy it is,’ I said, setting the van in motion. At least Titus wouldn’t want mindless chatter. This was good, because I was actually quite scared. Very few people liked Titus; many feared him. All sorts of rumours sloshed round about his past, and I don’t think he’d have hesitated to use violence if anyone crossed him. I dare say he’d taken every care not to be linked to the area in any way, and could have raped and/or murdered me – why did he want that rope, for goodness’ sake? – and got away with it. But I trusted him. For one thing he needed my father’s skills, and without me to keep an eye on him, Lord Elham would be back on the Pot Noodles and champagne diet and the shakes within a month. For another I think he quite liked the old reprobate, and wouldn’t want to have him upset, as he would be if I disappeared. And maybe – this was a very shaky maybe – he quite liked having me around to spar with.

  While I drove, he fastened the rope into a noose – quite a small one, certainly not big enough to go over my head.

  ‘Anyone asks, lost our dog, see.’

  ‘Bit of a basic lead,’ I sniffed.

  ‘Bit of a basic dog. Lot of mongrel in him.’

  I didn’t argue.

  The rain might have eased a bit, but the light was poor. I parked under a convenient tree but with two wheels firmly on the road, and pulled on my wellies. He did the same. I zipped up my waterproof and pulled up the hood, shoving my hands in my pockets and wondering why I never thought to bring gloves.

  Without speaking, we set off.

  ‘I don’t even know what I’m looking for,’ I said, a couple of hundred yards down an almost liquid track.

  ‘Me neither. But you wanted to look, so we’re looking.’ He stopped dead, and pointed with his torch at something. When I stood peering blindly, he switched it on, a fierce narrow beam picking out disturbed undergrowth.

  ‘Thing is, badgers or night hawks?’ He widened the beam. There were a lot of lumps and hollows. ‘Badgers. Only sometimes they dig things up. And sometimes they dig them after the filth have been over the place with their fine tooth combs.’ He played the beam to and fro. At last, shaking his head, he moved forward a few more yards.

  ‘Ought to separate and zigzag, but not in this light. Have you getting yourself lost, and then where would we be? More badgers.’ He narrowed the torch beam again.

  ‘Looks like an old milk bottle top.’ I pointed.

  ‘And since when did the milkman deliver out here?’ He headed off; I followed.

  ‘Lucky old badger,’ he said, picking up a bright disc and wiping it on his trousers. ‘Late Roman. Anything else? Apart from a nice dose of bovine TB?’

  Swallowing a suggestion that something as precious as a gold coin should be reported to the Coroner, I shone my torch into the sett, proud I’d remembered a word I don’t have much call for. And screamed.

  ‘For God’s sake, doll – just a few roots!’

  ‘Looked like a hand. Skeleton of a hand.’

  ‘Or do you mean hand of a skeleton? Come on. Shift yourself.’

  It was hard to move quickly, but Titus set a cracking pace, especially when we picked up a track reinforced by some hard core.

  ‘Recent, if you ask me. Needed t
o get people in here without getting bogged down.’ He waved his torch backwards and forwards.

  I did the same. No idea what we were looking for, but it looked good. And it lit something up. I’d seen enough blue and white tape in my life to recognize police activity when I saw it.

  Titus stopped short. ‘OK, that’s it, doll. We take that path over there and go back to my car that way. Don’t want to tangle with the Old Bill.’

  No derring do there, then. But I shouldn’t have expected it. Titus didn’t do drugs, never drank while driving, observed speed signs as if they were Holy Writ and was generally so damned law-abiding you’d never have dreamed he spent his whole life committing serious fraud.

  I nodded and fell into step. ‘At least we know they’re treating where I found my body – or near enough – as a crime scene,’ I said. ‘Hang on, what’s that lot over there? Looks like a building site or something.’

  We struck off on a feeble track leading towards it. At last we came upon another, much better path, again reinforced with hard core.

  ‘Knew this old bird once. Had to get rid of a lot of rubble from her old outhouse. Advertised it in the local rag as hard core. Had all the pervs in the county beating a path to her door.’

  We took the track. Titus started fiddling with his rope.

  If I’d been scared before, now I was terrified.

  My mouth was too dry to say anything. Why should he be playing with the end, fraying it and picking at it? Why should he be looking at the trees, which now loomed over us?

  He went right up to one and seemed to wipe it with the rope. And then he set off down what was really only a rabbit run, dabbing trees at intervals.

  ‘Want to get left behind, doll? Going the right way about it.’

  My legs didn’t want to move. At all.

  But his weird route led us round to chained up gates, festooned with barbed and razor wire. We played our torches over high stakes covered in thick plastic-covered wire mesh. A nice impenetrable fence. For good measure it was lined with more mesh, the fine plastic sort, like they put round the village tennis courts to reduce the wind.

  ‘Bloody gulag. All it needs is a few high towers, a searchlight and an Alsatian or two.’

  I didn’t argue.

  Titus shone his torch in great arcs in front. ‘Looking for the Welcome mat. No? Someone must have nicked it. And see that sign there, doll? Private security? That means dog patrols, and I for one can’t abide the creatures.’

  ‘Not even mongrels?’

  ‘Especially fucking mongrels.’

  ‘It also means cameras. Those are the people who do our security. Cameras where you don’t expect to see them.’

  ‘So pull your hood down a bit more.’ He set off for a brisk walk round the fence.

  ‘Gap there.’ I pointed. His eye-height, not mine.

  He peered. ‘Bloody hell. Looks like a load of Eskimos have landed. Plastic igloos everywhere,’ he explained.

  ‘Like police put over crime scenes?’

  ‘Here.’ He put a key in the tear and dragged it downwards. ‘Nothing like a spot of vandalism.’

  ‘I wonder if it’s an archaeological site . . . I’d expected it to look like the Somme, all flooded trenches. But I suppose they have to protect something from all this rain.’

  ‘Question is, what?’

  ‘We’ve been spotted – camera on your left.’ I turned right and hunched my shoulders. ‘And do I hear—?’

  ‘You do. Fucking run. Now. No, that way!’

  I ran. And fell.

  I caught male voices. No baying, no barking. But that didn’t mean –

  Titus grabbed me as I tripped. ‘Stupid bitch. Got to keep up, got to keep quiet. Get it?’

  I got it. Couldn’t do otherwise since he’d got a hand clamped over my mouth and was using the other to lever me up. Then I was dragged along, willy-nilly. We reached the trees he’d dabbed with the rope and veered off sharply. I suppose there might have been a path – I certainly couldn’t see it.

  We stopped suddenly. I didn’t so much as squeak this time. Like him I listened for – goodness knows what. At last he pointed. ‘Road’s that way.’

  By now it was almost dark. He stopped suddenly, used a craft knife to slice the end off the rope and threw the cut piece as high as he could into a tree. He stowed the knife, and wrapped the remaining rope round his waist. Then he grabbed my wrist and ran hard back not towards his car but to the van.

  I think.

  I’d never been colder or wetter or more scared. Not since I was a kid, at any rate. I was about to fall into the van as if it were Griff’s arms when Titus grabbed me.

  ‘On any DNA database?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Course not, or bloody Habgood wouldn’t be on to you for a gob-swab, would he?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Easily bend a policeman, get what he wants. Give me your foot. Oh, sit down if you must.’ He grabbed my wellies, one by one, filled them to the brim with mud and rolled them in more mud. Then he slung them, hard as he could, into the deepest, thickest bit of hedge. He did the same for his own on the other side of the road.

  ‘What are you waiting for? Get your heater on, woman. And get moving.’

  Slipping shoes on to numb feet, I obeyed.

  ‘Pity about all the stuff on the sides of your van. Never thought of being more discreet? Nice anonymous set of wheels like mine is what you want. How you going to explain all this to Griff then?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering about that myself.’

  ‘Flat tyre. Had to get it sorted. My mate back end of Ashford’ll alibi you if needs be.’

  ‘But I never lie to Griff.’

  ‘So you’ll tell him you spend the afternoon strolling hand in hand with me? I don’t think so. Here’s my wheels. No, don’t stop close by, silly cow. Up the road a couple of hundred yards.’

  I obeyed. As I pulled up, I ventured one question. ‘What was all that with the rope?’

  ‘Never heard of patterans? Gypsies leave clues for their mates to track them.’

  ‘But I didn’t think we wanted to be tracked.’

  ‘’Course we didn’t. That’s why we came back the same way.’

  ‘So why did you cut of the end and throw it up the tree?’

  ‘Because it was all soaked in aniseed, see.’

  ‘Aniseed?’

  ‘Give the little doggies something to sniff at and go that way. God, don’t you know nothing?’

  ‘Not a lot.’ I must have sounded as dismal as I felt.

  Suddenly he grabbed my chin and turned my face towards him. ‘None of that, doll – d’you hear me? You might not have your GSCEs and stuff, and you’d get lost in a wood, but you’re as bright as they come. Got your dad’s genes, and that old bugger Griff’s polished them up something lovely. Understand?’ He shook my head slightly. ‘All you want to worry about now is not going wandering about the woods with some old bastard you hardly know. Fucking stupid.’

  I put my chin up. ‘Not as fucking stupid as wandering around on my own.’

  ‘As it happens, no. But you want to ask yourself what you’ve achieved. You’ve lost a pair of wellies and missed an afternoon’s work. You’ve found a police crime scene and something no one wanted you to get into and you didn’t get into.’

  ‘What do you think it was?’

  ‘From all this stuff about the rings, not to mention my little souvenir, I’d say you’re right. It’s an archaeological site. But I don’t know, any more than you do.’

  People raiding a site like that would be total menaces.

  ‘So, all in all, not a good afternoon’s work, doll. Plus you’ve got to invent some cock and bull story for Griff. So I tell you something for nothing – don’t do this again. OK? ’Cos I might not be there to look out for you.’

  ‘At least I know the aniseed trick,’ I said.

  This time he squeezed my cheeks, quite lightly. ‘So you do, doll, so you do.’

 
With that he was gone.

  ‘We had yet another hunt for his mother’s engagement ring,’ I told Griff. ‘And he tipped over boxes – piano music – and made so much mess I had to tidy up a bit.’ It was all true, more or less. ‘And he talked a bit more about Granny Baird.’

  ‘Nanny, sweet one. A granny is quite different. Has he run her family to earth yet?’

  ‘He still wants me to try. But I can’t, Griff, I can’t.’ For some reason I put my hands over my face and cried. Real tears, too. Mostly caused by trying to pull wool over his eyes, actually. But we had a hug, and a nice drop of some home made cherry brandy one of his clients had given him for Christmas and everything seemed better. Mostly, at least.

  At three in the morning, it wasn’t roots in the badger’s sett, but a hand, and the rest of the body too. And it changed before my eyes into the one I’d found and never tried to rescue.

  FOURTEEN

  Titus had been right. I was left with a slimy conscience and nothing more. In fact, the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to think about it. Particularly as I’d bet the whole shop that Titus wouldn’t hand over to Will or anyone like him the coin he’d trousered.

  Then, the following day, something weird happened. A woman near Dover phoned, telling me she wanted me to look at an epergne, to see if I could repair it. Since it was too large to bring to the shop simply on the off chance, she would pay me for a house call. Her address was Mattock Farm, which suggested a pair of wellies might be in order. I’d have to stop and buy some more – probably that wonderful village shop would oblige. I took some first aid items; not the human sort (we had a box in both vans), but for ornaments, so I could do an immediate repair. If the patient needed hospitalization, then I had a large plastic box and plenty of tissue and bubble wrap to hand.

  Before I could agree with Griff that dancing attendance on a client at her home was not part of my job description I set off. I didn’t like high-handed folk who brayed instructions at me, and would normally have told her so. But since I’d shopped for my father the day before, I could offer to do a Waitrose shop for Griff, which cheered him up considerably.