Bury in Haste

by Jean Rowden

  Deepbriar measured and sketched the imprint, which had been left by a man’s right foot, in a size nine boot. If there had been more damage done at Quinn’s farm then perhaps he might persuade Sergeant Hubbard to send somebody to take a cast of it. He had a momentary vision of himself giving evidence in court, while the lawyer presented exhibit ‘B’, and he explained how he had run the villain to ground, thanks to this vital piece of evidence. The judge was congratulating him profusely on his skill in cracking the case, before the bubble suddenly burst. Deepbriar shook his head. It was funny the effect a bright sunny morning could have on a man.

  Having come this far, he decided to follow the trail all the way. He had some bread and cheese in his pocket for elevenses, and although it wasn’t yet nine o’clock he fetched it out as he strode down the hill, keeping his eyes on the ground as he ate. His perseverance paid off; he found two more partial prints, one of them of the left boot, which showed signs of wear on the outside of the heel. A gleam in his eye, Deepbriar made a record of that as well. Minecliff wasn’t a big place, he reckoned he’d have the case all wrapped up in a couple of days.

  There was the usual morning bustle going on at Quinn’s farm. Deepbriar spotted the farmer himself, just coming out of the house on the heels of old Bob.

  Ferdy Quinn stared at the constable. ‘Well, I suppose it proves something, you being on the way when I telephoned. But you didn’t stop him last night, did you?’

  ‘So, I was right, he was here again.’ Deepbriar scanned the yard. ‘What was it this time?’

  ‘He’s taken to thieving,’ Quinn said grimly. ‘Something’s gone missing.’

  ‘Not the heifers again?’

  ‘No, this isn’t just a matter of a gate being left open.’ Quinn marched across the yard, Deepbriar and old Bob trailing in his wake. ‘You were supposed to be out making sure nothing like this happened, constable. And now I’ve been robbed.’ He came to a halt and waved a hand dramatically. ‘There!’

  It was a pigsty. And it was empty. Deepbriar stared at the emptiness, then looked back at Quinn, as the light dawned. So that was it! He couldn’t help the smile that flickered at the corners of his mouth; it really was a good morning. The mystery of Harry’s alien was solved, and he was well on the way to making an arrest.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve got to be so pleased about! Where were you last night when somebody was running off with my prize sow?’ Quinn demanded furiously.

  ‘Keeping watch,’ Deepbriar said. ‘A man can only be in one place at a time. Your villain has all the luck, I’ll say that for him. However, this time we’ve had a bit of luck of our own. I think he’s left us some evidence. Did you or any of your men come down that path since the rain stopped last night?’ He pointed at the track he’d followed from the copse on the hill.

  ‘I certainly didn’t,’ Quinn replied, obviously mystified. ‘I’ll find out.’ He hurried off and came back a couple of minutes later, shaking his head. ‘No, they all came straight into the yard. What’s that track got to do with anything?’

  ‘It was used by a man in size nine boots,’ Deepbriar said triumphantly. ‘And I’ve got a good print of the pattern on the sole.’

  From inside the next sty came a squeal of outrage, and a large pink pig appeared, shaking itself indignantly as it rushed out into the walled yard at the front, followed a moment later by a cluster of little pigs.

  ‘Give Ant a hand with that feed, Bob,’ Ferdy Quinn said.

  ‘It’s on its way,’ the old man replied, pottering towards them bowlegged under the weight of two full buckets.

  Deepbriar stared down at the sow, which had its front trotters up on the wall as it yelled for its breakfast. He’d heard plenty of pigs in the past, he should have known what had made that inhuman scream the previous night. Come to that, so should Harry. He hid another grin as he shook his head. If he let on in the Speckled Goose, young Bartle would never hear the end of it. Martians!

  ‘Exactly how would our man go about stealing a pig?’ he asked, as Bob tipped the food over the wall into a trough. ‘They’re not exactly easy to drive, I’d guess.’

  ‘That they ain’t,’ the old man replied. ‘If’n a sow don’t want to go someplace then her won’t, not nohow, and Matilda was a right independent-minded old biddy.’

  ‘So it might be easier to pick her up and carry her?’

  ‘Could be.’ Bob sighed, grimacing as he straightened his back, and giving his boss a baleful glance. ‘If you’m got the strength, that is. Mind you, Matilda ain’t such a big ’un as this ’ere. Time was I could hoist that beast on my shoulders an’ not notice her was there!’

  Piggy back, Deepbriar thought. Perhaps that was where the phrase came from. Harry’s monster had been a man, and the pale deformed head was a pig’s snout pointing skywards. So all he had to do was find a strong man with short legs, wearing boots that fitted the print in the wood.

  ‘Constable?’ Ferdy Quinn interrupted his train of thought, and somehow also anticipating it. ‘Are you sure Bert Bunyard’s out of action?’

  Hurdles Farm lay deserted in the bright Sunday morning sunshine. Ferdy Quinn had threatened to visit Falbrough police station again unless Deepbriar promised to question Bunyard once more. Leaving his bike down the lane Deepbriar walked the last fifty yards; he’d assure himself, once and for all, that neither the old rogue of a farmer, nor his son, had been out on the prowl the night before.

  He trod carefully, weaving from one side of the track to the other as he scanned the ground for boot prints; there were plenty, but none that matched the pattern he’d seen up in Quinn’s copse. Continuing his search in the yard he studied the gateway then went up to the back door. Common sense told him that Bert Bunyard couldn’t be Quinn’s tormentor, not this time, but at the back of his mind a nagging doubt persisted.

  Deepbriar stood precariously on one leg, balancing on a narrow drain cover, while he inspected the patch of mud beneath an overflowing gutter. A loud guffaw sounded behind him and he whirled round, having to put his other foot down quickly to avoid losing his balance. Wet mud splashed on to his trouser leg.

  ‘I saw you move,’ Humphrey Bunyard said, pointing at him in childlike fashion and grinning. ‘Statues,’ he went on. ‘We played that at school.’

  ‘Hello, Humph. Good at playing statues were you?’

  The big head nodded and the grin widened. ‘I liked playtime. Got any chocolate?’

  ‘Not today. Do you know an old man called Bronc, Humph?’

  Humphrey nodded again. ‘Boys used to shout at him.’

  ‘Have you seen him lately? In the last few days?’

  The young simpleton thought for a long while. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t go to school any more.’

  Deepbriar extricated himself from the mud and walked over, taking a good look at Humphrey Bunyard’s boots. They were very large and well worn, almost scuffed through at the toes.

  ‘You got any more boots, Humph?’ Deepbriar asked.

  The young man shook his head. ‘Got some shoes,’ he said proudly. ‘Black ones. Me Dad gave them to me.’

  Abandoning this line of questioning Deepbriar turned to look at the house. ‘I came to see how your Dad’s getting on. When are they going to take that plaster off his leg?’

  Instead of looking blank, as Deepbriar expected, the childlike face was suddenly wary. ‘Dunno.’ Without another word he turned away and slouched across the yard to the cow shed.

  Deepbriar went to the back door. Ducking under the low lintel as he pushed his way in, he was lost in thought. There had to be an answer here. Humphrey Bunyard couldn’t possibly squeeze his feet into size nine boots, even if he could be persuaded to leave Hurdles Farm. None of the marks in the mud resembled those he’d found at Quinn’s place, although it looked as if Bert’s feet were a couple of sizes smaller than his son’s. Only there were no right prints. How could there be, when Bunyard’s right leg was in plaster? Yet again he made a mental tour around the villag
e, trying to dredge up the guilty party, but try as he might he couldn’t think of anybody else who would set out to persecute Ferdy Quinn.

  Deepbriar stood in the big kitchen and shouted, receiving an answering call from somewhere above. He clumped upstairs, and found Bert Bunyard in the first room at the front of the house, lying in a huge old fashioned bed, his back against blackened brass rails. The old man was half propped up on two grubby pillows, his neck at an uncomfortable angle, and the pair of crutches lying beside him on the floor, his plastered leg a lump under the blankets. His face was damp with sweat and he was breathing heavily.

  ‘Never thought I’d be glad to see you, Thorny Deepbriar,’ Bunyard growled. ‘Got meself stuck here, can’t get up nor down. Give us a heave, will yer?’

  Half an hour later, having found himself brewing the invalid a pot of tea and making him some toast, Deepbriar escaped thankfully back into the fresh air. On his way out he’d inspected Bunyard’s boots which lay by the kitchen door. They were size nines, almost new, and while the left was damp as well as dirty, the right one was caked hard with dry old mud, and the pattern on the sole was nothing like the one he was looking for.

  As he made his last call of the morning, Deepbriar made no attempt to look for boot prints; Mrs Emerson’s drive was immaculate, no mud dared show itself in her neat garden. Besides, in the year since Mrs Emerson moved to Minecliff there had been no evidence of a man in her life. An image of Mrs Emerson wearing oversize boots and rampaging around the countryside carrying a pig flitted through Deepbriar’s mind. It took him a while to get his expression back under control, then he lifted the shiny brass door knocker.

  ‘Thorny! How lovely to see you. Do come in.’ A small soft hand with painted fingernails grasped his sleeve and practically hauled him over the threshold. Deepbriar gritted his teeth; only friends, or acquaintances who’d known him a very long time, were allowed to use his nickname, and Mrs Emerson didn’t qualify.

  ‘It’s such a shame,’ the woman gushed. ‘I hardly ever see you. And Mary and I are such close friends. Let’s go into the library.’

  ‘I shan’t keep you long Mrs Emerson, just a word or two about that person you found in the village hall.’

  ‘Oh please, I’ve told you before, do call me Bella.’

  ‘Not while I’m on duty if you don’t mind, Mrs Emerson.’ He followed her into a room where a single shelf of leather-bound classics was overwhelmed by cabinets stacked full of knickknacks and trinkets.

  ‘Oh Thorny,’ she turned on him, simpering, ‘you’re always so very upright and correct. As if anyone would know, when we’re here all alone. Do have a seat. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No thank you.’ He took out his notebook, leafing back to find the entry he’d made the day she’d reported the incident. ‘Now, when I spoke to you before, you didn’t think this person had deliberately knocked you over. I recall I asked you that. Ah, here we are “… he must have been behind the door, and when I pushed it open it hit him, quite hard. I was surprised when it bounced back, and it knocked me down. Somehow I fell on my hands and knees, and I didn’t see him when he ran out of the building.” Is that how it happened, Mrs Emerson? Only from something my wife was saying I gather you may have changed your story.’

  ‘Oh, no, not exactly. I’m sure I didn’t. Perhaps she didn’t quite understand. I was only saying how lucky it was that I hadn’t been hurt. I mean, imagine, with the production so close, it would have been a disaster!’

  ‘And you’re quite sure there’s nothing you can tell me about this person? He didn’t say anything when the door hit him? There was nothing you heard, or saw, that might help us to identify him?’

  ‘Well no,’ She spread her well manicured hands in a helpless gesture so that the light caught on the many rings she wore. ‘There was a sort of grunt, that’s all. I didn’t see a thing.’

  ‘And nothing was taken.’ Deepbriar was already slipping the notebook back in his pocket.

  ‘I can’t be sure of that,’ she said, her tone a little sharper. ‘After all, there are a great many costumes and props in the Society’s store. I only moved to Minecliff a year ago.’

  ‘So you did.’ Deepbriar nodded. ‘Somehow it seems much longer. That reminds me, Mrs Emerson, there’s a man who used to call on Mr Plummer and do a few odd jobs. He generally spent a couple of nights in one of the sheds in the garden. Has he been here recently? Everyone knows him as Bronc—’

  ‘That tramp!’ She interrupted him indignantly. ‘I found him trying to break into the gardener’s bothy last year, only a few weeks after I arrived. I assure you I gave him short shrift, he’s not likely to show his face on my property again.’

  ‘You’ve not seen him since then.’

  ‘I have not. And if I ever catch him in my garden I shall most certainly inform you. I have no sympathy with beggars and vagrants. My poor dear husband worked hard for his money, I have no intention of defiling his memory by wasting it.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d allow me to take a look at this bothy, just to make sure he hasn’t been there without your knowledge.’ Deepbriar suggested.

  ‘Very well. It’s behind the ligustrum ovalifolium.’ She indicated a privet hedge to one side of the lawn. ‘Mr Witherby is here this morning, so it won’t be locked. He doesn’t usually come on a Saturday, but the dead leaves make the place look terribly untidy, so I asked him to work a few extra hours.’

  ‘Thank you, I’ll have a word with him first, then. As to the Operatic Society’s property, if you find anything’s missing, perhaps you’d let me know.’ He nodded, turning away quickly to avoid shaking her flabby hand again. Everything about the woman rubbed him up the wrong way; her phoney friendliness; the bolster-like figure tied tightly into expensive clothes; her cut-glass accent, but most of all Mary’s inability to see through her. That particular weakness seemed to be shared by half the village.

  Chapter Nine

  * * *

  Deepbriar found Simon Witherby in the garden, the old man’s round face pink with effort as he pushed a wheelbarrow full of leaves up the steep grassy track.

  ‘Morning, Simon.’

  ‘Mornin’ Thorny,’ Witherby huffed, lowering the barrow and straightening his back with a groan. ‘Come to see the Duchess have you? You’ll not find her out here, gardens are grubby places, she might get her hands dirty.’

  ‘I was looking for you,’ Deepbriar replied, hiding his amusement at the nickname the old gardener had bestowed on Mrs Emerson. ‘I was wondering if you’d seen Bronc lately, I know this used to be one of his haunts.’

  A wary look came into the faded grey eyes. ‘I’ve never seen him in this garden, not since her Highness turfed him out last year,’ Witherby said. ‘What do you want him for?’

  ‘It’s all right, he’s not in any trouble, I just think he might be able to help with my enquiries. He sees things, travelling about the way he does. Has he been here?’

  Witherby nodded, taking a crumpled packet of tobacco and some Rizlas from his pocket to roll a cigarette before he answered, then looking over his shoulder to check that his employer hadn’t come out of the house.

  ‘Reckon he spent a couple of nights here,’ he said. ‘I saw him on Saturday morning, when I was fetching some bulbs from Van Hoorns for the Colonel. He was t’other side of Possington, heading this way. He said he was going to call in at Quinn’s, and maybe go to the Goose. Then he asked if her ladyship was likely to be about. Said he was needing a place to get his head down, but that he’d be on his way by Monday night.’ He tilted his head at the bothy. ‘I told him where I hide the key. There’s an old sofa in there, pretty comfy. Used to use it myself for a nap at lunch times now and then.’ He put the finished cigarette, a skinny, rather crumpled looking object, into his mouth and struck a match against his apron to light it.

  ‘Have a look if you want. Funny really, I thought he’d be back for his things.’

  Apart from a rack of tools along one wall, the place didn’t loo
k much like a garden shed inside. It was furnished with an old black stove, a table, two mismatched chairs, and a large sofa, covered with several brightly coloured rugs. At one end of the sofa lay a parcel tied up with newspaper; and a Deerstalker hat.

  ‘Cosy ain’t it,’ Witherby said complacently. ‘Old Mr Plummer took good care of his staff, I’ll say that for him. Not like her. Lucky to get time for a cuppa and a bite these days, let alone a decent sit down.’

  His voice droned on, bemoaning the changes the last year had brought. Deepbriar ignored him and examined the Deerstalker. He found some longish grey hairs on it, which seemed to confirm that it was the hat Bronc had been wearing the previous Saturday night, and although one parcel might look very much like another, he thought the package was the one that had been lying under Bronc’s seat in the Speckled Goose when he’d last seen him.

  ‘I found the hat out by the compost heap this morning,’ Witherby said. ‘Wasn’t till I brought it in here that I found the parcel. Funny, that. When I was here first thing Monday morning there wasn’t a sign of him. Always carries that parcel, he does, never seen him without it.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he told you where he was heading next?’ Deepbriar asked. ‘You’ve not found anything else?’

  ‘Like what?’ Witherby stared at him, his mouth dropping open and the skinny stub of cigarette hanging down, stuck to his bottom lip. ‘You sound worried. Don’t tell me you think something’s happened to old Bronc?’

  ‘Have you ever known him to leave his belongings behind?’ Deepbriar asked.

  Witherby scratched his head. ‘Can’t say I have. Come to that, I’ve never seen him take off his hat.’

  On Monday morning Thorny Deepbriar struggled through the crowd of officers waiting for the arrival of the van that was to take them to Belston, and knocked on the door of the CID office, which stood open. He walked in to find a man in his late twenties, sitting yawning at an untidy desk, his fashionable shoes propped on an upturned wastepaper bin. Sergeant Jakes looked a great deal more comfortable than he had when Deepbriar last saw him, out at Oldgate Farm.