Green and Pleasant Land

by Judith Cutler

  ‘And you first met where?’

  ‘Here. Here at Hindlip.’

  ‘Really? Very well,’ Fran continued, her instincts giving a sudden twitch, ‘when did you first meet his wife?’

  Dundy rolled her eyes. ‘Here at Hindlip, of course.’

  Fran pounced, ‘Why of course?’

  ‘Because she’s head of Human Resources, isn’t she?’

  ‘What do heads of HR do?’ Fran wondered aloud. ‘They have access to everyone’s files, including those of visiting freelance consultants, don’t they?’

  Dundy’s face closed. ‘I’ve had enough of this. I wish to return home.’ But she added, perhaps foolishly, ‘I won’t answer any more questions till I have my lawyer with me.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll make sure you can make your phone call and I’ll organize some refreshment for you,’ said Fran, forgetting she couldn’t. She got to her feet, and was already at the door when she turned to ask casually, ‘Though it would be really good if you could tell us how long you’ve known Ann.’

  ‘Ann Sumner? We go back – No, no comment. I told you no more questions!’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Mark and Dan walked together up the Garbutts’ drive, Mark deliberately breaking step so they didn’t seem to be marching. Mrs Garbutt must have been caught unawares; she opened the door fully.

  Standing, they dominated the already crowded room. Mark would have sat down, but Dan walked over to the fireplace, clearly happy to maintain his authority. ‘We’ve come,’ he said, ‘to apologize for losing some of the memorabilia you entrusted to us. We hope it’ll come to light as we investigate other problems that have arisen in connection with the case, but I’m truly sorry. Some newspaper cuttings – we think that’s all.’

  Surely Mark caught a puzzled glance flying between the Garbutts? But he’d let Dan press on and come back to the cuttings when everyone thought he’d forgotten them.

  ‘Everything else is safely bagged and logged. We hope to return it within twenty-four hours.’ He was a good speaker, eye-contacting each person in turn, pausing longer than many would have dared before the next point. ‘But we do have some good news.’ Another, longer pause – heavens, had the man been taking lessons from Edwina? Slowly he took from his inside pocket his mobile. ‘He who was lost is now found. Here is the latest picture of a very fine young man.’ He showed the tiny image to each in turn. And waited for a reaction.

  When he got no more than a silence, not delighted or relieved, but stunned, baleful or resentful according to which face he looked at, he returned the phone to his pocket. And looked at Mark, as if expecting him to pull a conversational rabbit from a non-existent hat.

  He obliged: ‘You all knew, didn’t you? Why don’t I tell you what we think happened? We believe that for whatever reason, Natalie decided to leave her husband, taking her children with her. But he was a possessive man, and would have fought with every means at his disposal to keep them – not her, perhaps. He sacked you, Anna: perhaps you’ll tell us why later. But I suspect that you had already become a close friend of Natalie’s, and agreed to help her. Perhaps because of the weather, you didn’t make the rendezvous point, and so Natalie decided to come to you, wherever you were parked, leaving her vehicle where it was – even if it meant abandoning her dying son.’

  Surely by now he should have had a general response, people murmuring in protest or shock. But they all regarded him impassively. It was surely meant to be unnerving and it was.

  ‘Anna? Am I correct so far?’

  ‘He was already dead,’ Anna snapped. ‘There’s no way she’d have left him if he’d still been alive! She loved him. It broke her heart even doing that. But she had another son to protect.’

  ‘So she gathered him up and ran with him to the pick-up point – one near the A456, I’d imagine. You drove her to an airport? And saw her on a flight to …?’

  ‘Italy. My parents helped her with clothes, money, things for the journey. If she’d wanted, she could have stayed with them. But then she left for Buenos Aires.’

  ‘Why Argentina?’ Dan asked.

  She gave a snort of laughter. ‘Love, of course. For a footballer she’d met through Phil. They’re still together. Very rich. Though she told me she settled all Phil’s cash on Adrian.’ She pronounced it Aydree-arn. It sounded far more glamorous than the English Adrian, if not as overblown as Hadrian.

  Mark wasn’t sure how far to trust her. ‘But as soon as you knew we wanted to question you, you fled to Italy. Why bother?’

  She spread her hands. ‘Since you’ve been here, we’ve all been – paranoid, I suppose. Perhaps I wanted to pull the wool over your eyes. But I’d have much preferred you not to contact my employers. That was a breach of my privacy.’

  Mark bowed, non-committally. ‘But all of you have been involved one way or another. Ted, you pulled a certain amount of wool, too, didn’t you? And I suspect it’d take a man with your strength to deal with Edwina’s floodgate, if not the culvert that someone kindly blocked. Criminal damage, that. As for hitting poor Edwina – I’m downright ashamed of you. Leaving her face down in the water, too. It was only by chance that Fran and Paula turned up. You might have had the death of a good woman on your hands.’

  ‘No good your pointing a finger at me, Mark. That wasn’t me. I put my hands up to the culvert: never did like the idea of all these holiday lets when there are decent local folk who can’t buy homes. And I thought it’d give that Fran of yours something real to whinge about too.’

  That was one thing Mark would try to keep off the record. ‘And Edwina deserved to be assaulted?’ He turned to Sandra Mould. ‘She’s a friend of yours! Why be part of a group committing nasty little crimes like that? Against a totally innocent woman who loved Natalie as much as any of you do?’

  ‘I asked you at the meeting: what right do you have to come to our village and poke your nose into things that don’t concern you? Things that are best left undisturbed anyway?’ In a younger woman her movement would have been a flounce. ‘Edwina’s such a stupid woman when she’s in her cups: so damned indiscreet.’

  ‘I’d like to take that as a denial that you touched her? Very well, if it wasn’t Ted, who was it? No?’ He looked around feeling for all the world like a teacher about to keep a class in. ‘Ah, one person who isn’t here today. The woman Iris doesn’t like, eh, Ted? Bethan Carter?’

  The silence spoke.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll soon run her to earth,’ Dan declared, even if he’d never heard of the woman before.

  ‘Was it you who stole the paperwork, then, Ted? Or did you get Iris to do that? But it must have been you who tried to hack into the iPad. Right? After all, you help teach IT. Sorry you won’t get full marks for that attempt.’

  ‘Always assuming I made it. I’d say the burden of proof lies with you.’ He smiled confidently. ‘Or rather, your new puppet master.’ He glared at Dan.

  ‘And there’s another important issue: who’s your mole inside Hindlip? The one who squealed as soon as we tried to access CCTV coverage that would have included any visitors to our corridor?’

  Ted narrowed his eyes. ‘Reckon that’s another job for you IPCC people to find out. Earn your corn for a change.’

  Mark left that one to Dan. But the younger man ignored the jibe, turning instead to the Garbutts. ‘Mr and Mrs Garbutt, my apology still stands. But I wish, I dearly wish, that you had told someone about this right at the start. I presume you knew all about it.’

  ‘Then you presume wrong,’ Mrs Garbutt declared. ‘I’d have told her outright, I can see why you don’t want any more children, I can see why you don’t want him to hit you any more, I can see you don’t want your nanny assaulted. But you get yourself a proper divorce. That’s what I’d have said. Get yourself some fancy lawyers. Get court orders. Do the thing right.’

  ‘But she never got the chance, see,’ Mr Garbutt said quietly. ‘We know she’s all right, because we get letters she sends via – via a number of
people,’ he ended lamely. ‘When we saw that that bloody PI might ask the postie if he ever delivered letters from abroad to our house.’

  Mark’s head shot up. ‘Fran said she didn’t think you knew about the PI, Mrs Garbutt. You became very angry when he was mentioned.’

  ‘Of course I was angry. I was angry anyone knew.’

  She wasn’t going to tolerate much more, so Mark had to take his chance. ‘Just for the record, Mrs Garbutt, so we can deal with whoever was responsible for stealing your property. As a matter of interest, what was in the cuttings you saved with Natalie’s other stuff? You saved so very little it seems—’

  Mr Garbutt blinked. ‘What’s all this rubbish you’re talking? We saved loads of stuff. It’s in the loft.’

  ‘Shut up, you old fool!’

  But he continued, ‘And we never saved any newspaper cuttings.’

  ‘Nothing about a man faking his death in a canoe accident?’

  ‘No. No. Why should we?’

  Before he could ask about the stuff in the loft, even if he’d thought it appropriate to do so, Mrs Garbutt was on her feet. ‘Clear out, all of you. Father over there’s had enough. Go on. Clear out.’

  What was it about retiring? For more than thirty years her stomach had tolerated only getting food when it was offered some – and often had to do without for long periods of time. Now it was disgracing her by rumbling insistently. Fortunately neither Naz nor Sumner seemed aware of it. Wrong. After five more minutes of stonewalling from Sumner, Naz held up a quietly authoritative hand. ‘We’re getting nowhere fast, aren’t we? I’ll ask someone to organize a cup of tea for us. Naturally I’d like to take possession of your mobile, DCI Sumner. Thanks.’ He had his hand on the door before he turned. ‘All your mobiles, actually, DCI Sumner. Thanks.’

  Fran followed him from the room.

  ‘It’s like extracting teeth, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I could do with a breather, couldn’t you?’ He detailed the uniformed constable sitting outside to stay where he was; if Sumner wanted a toilet break he had to summon one of the women staff who made up the rest of Dan’s team to accompany her.

  To Fran’s surprise, he led the way out of the building. ‘Do you know where we can get a sarnie at this time of day? The pubs’ll have finished serving long since, won’t they?’

  ‘Sainsbury’s? Why not the canteen?’ But she knew the answer before he gave it.

  ‘Once or twice in your career, you must have walked into a big room where everyone loathed you? Hisses, muffled boos? In my job I certainly have. And you have to choose at random from wrapped sandwiches because someone might have spat in the soup or put crap in a salad? I’m not exposing either of us to that. Of course, it may be Sumner they loathe, and I can’t have them doing that to her food on my watch. Can you navigate?’

  ‘I can and I will.’ Her phone rang. ‘But I have to take this. It’s from our best witness yet.’

  ‘I seem to have stirred up quite a hornet’s nest,’ Marion Roberts declared. ‘This morning I’ve had two separate telephone calls from the police, advising me not to speak to you again. Furthermore, I was asked whether I didn’t think it advisable to retract what I said to you last week. After all these years, apparently, my memory might be at fault,’ she added.

  ‘And this caller,’ Fran asked, almost seeing the glint in Marion’s eye, ‘was male or female?’

  ‘Female. At first I thought it might be that nice young woman you brought along, but then I wasn’t so sure. My memory may still be acute, but my ears are less satisfactory.’

  ‘I shall send Mark round to proselytize: he has a pair of little miracles to help his.’

  ‘Please bring him. I would love to meet you again before you head back to Kent.’

  ‘And I you. Now, because this is germane to something I’m working on right now, could you recall the time of the calls? I’d like to have a few minutes’ conversation with the caller.’

  ‘One was at nine fifty-five; the other at eleven forty. Before you go, may I ask you about that colleague of yours? Why was she so distraught? Was it simply the talk of sick and dying children that upset her?’

  ‘I think so,’ she said, suddenly quite sure there was more to it than that. She added, not sure if it would convince Marion any more than it convinced herself, ‘She’s been very much on edge through the whole case.’

  They made their goodbyes. But Fran was already planning what question she’d ask Sumner when they resumed.

  But it wasn’t Sumner she spoke to first. It was Paula, whom she took to a soft interview room, complete with teddy bears and tissues. ‘How long has Sumner been blackmailing you, Paula?’

  The young woman put her hands up as if physically to fend off the question.

  But Fran persisted. ‘You remember how you brought your kids in to work the day you rescued us. They got a bit lively. I presume you’d penned them in your car while you were busy in our office and in the incident room and they’d got bored. The next morning you told me how hard it was not to smack them. You were more upset than I’d have expected. Far more. But not if someone else had already seen you smack them and had mentioned that they could always get social services involved, which might end in your losing your kids and would certainly result in your losing your job – one on which your family depends. Right? And your blackmailer didn’t want you to do much – just to keep her informed of our goings on by hacking our iPad and so on. I think you’re the victim, here, Paula. Blackmail’s a criminal offence.’

  ‘So is hitting your kids.’

  ‘Often?’

  ‘Just the once. In Sainsbury’s. They smashed six dozen eggs. Sumner saw me.’

  ‘Of course she did. We certainly didn’t see anything more than normal parental anger. But perhaps if you thought it would do you good, HR might arrange some counselling.’

  ‘HR? With the ACC’s wife in charge? You’ve got to be joking. It’d be all round the force in three minutes flat. She’s got a good little network of serfs, too.’

  Mark would have smiled at the old-fashioned term. Fran just clasped Paula’s hand. ‘We were going to donate our fee to the Police Benevolent Fund. We still will, most of it. But first there’s an officer sitting right here who needs help. We’ll pay for as much counselling as you need. Understand? By the way,’ she added casually, ‘just tell me why Stu came up with that idea about a newspaper cutting?’

  ‘He’d sussed me out. He just came up with the idea of something that would never be found.’

  ‘But why lie? Why not say there was nothing amiss?’

  ‘Because he wanted to warn you that there were security problems without dobbing me in. And because he’s just being Stu. I’ve never fathomed him out – don’t suppose I ever will.’

  Dan waited for the others to drive away before starting the car.

  ‘You’re very brave,’ Mark said. ‘I’d have been off like a shot. They’re probably waiting round the next bend to ambush you.’

  ‘I’ll sit here a bit longer then and let them get bored. My God, won’t our friends at the Crown Prosecution Service have a lovely time deciding what to do with that lot!’

  ‘You think some of them will be taken to court?’

  ‘You can’t have people going round whacking old ladies on the head and causing criminal damage. Maybe we can get them to accept a caution apiece. However, that really is a job for the local lads, assuming there are any of them left when we’ve given Hindlip a thorough going over.’

  Despite himself, Mark was shocked. ‘Ninety-nine point nine per cent of them will be good decent officers, hard-working and conscientious.’

  ‘Point taken. We shall just have to find that nought point one per cent, won’t we?’ He paused to take a call.

  Mark listened intently, even turning up the volume on his aids. And was rewarded. Sumner had undisclosed debts; Dundy’s promise of promotion – one which, of course, she wasn’t entitled to make – had ensured enthusiastic cooperation.

  TWENT
Y-SEVEN

  ‘The thing about legs,’ Dean said helpfully, ‘is that the top half is connected to the bottom half by a knee. And they’re also connected to hips, which have a pretty close relationship to backs. And via the back to the neck. So while you may think you’ve just got a stiff neck, I’d point out there’s a lot of tension just here—’ he paused to let Fran squeak as a point halfway between her shoulder and her spine exploded. ‘And so on. So, before we adjourn to Turners Restaurant, and while Mark sleeps, you talk to me to take your mind off what I have to do.’

  Fran shifted on Dean’s treatment table in the clinic attached to his house. Mark was theoretically watching TV, but she wouldn’t argue with Dean’s analysis of the situation. Not after Mark’s game of tennis earlier in the day. A man his age against a professional sportsman. But he’d enjoyed buying new kit from the club shop.

  ‘Just as Phil Foreman used to do,’ she observed.

  ‘Quite. But clearly you have a different viewpoint. And remember, what’s said in this room stays in this room. Even twenty years on.’

  ‘First up,’ she said, wincing under a probing thumb, ‘there’s good news. Hadrian is now Adrian.’ She attempted the Spanish pronunciation. ‘Yes, thanks to your information about his ball skills, we managed to track him down. He plays polo.’

  Dean whistled. ‘The rich man’s sport.’

  ‘Heading for the Argentinian national team, apparently. No doubt his mother pays all the bills. And her husband of the last nineteen years.’

  ‘Ah, she married her footballer, did she? I hoped it would last.’

  ‘You sound like a kindly priest.’

  ‘This muscle says you could do with some kindness.’

  ‘So it does,’ she agreed. ‘What I can’t understand – because unlike you they didn’t have to observe professional silence – is why the people we spoke to didn’t simply come clean. All Natalie’s parents had to do the first time I saw them was to put their hands up and tell me the truth. I’d have said “Well done, Natalie” and legged it back to Kent as soon as the weather would let me.’