The Rags of Time

by Peter Grainger

  ‘We all have a past, sergeant, and Brother Joe is no exception.’

  Jeremy was opening the French doors from his office, and the warmth of the morning swept into the dim room – perhaps he was really trying to cool down the garden outside. Smith made no further comment and the guardian of the friary continued with, ‘Suffice it to say that Joe knows that whereof he speaks so eloquently…’

  In some respects, it seems, a friary is no different to a police station or any other organisation in which people of diverse characters and backgrounds come together for some common purpose; even here at Abbeyfields, Smith reflected, you don’t need to be around for long before you notice the unfinished sentences, the little disapprovals, the rivalries and jealousies. No doubt Brother Joe and his politics were a problem for the guardian from time to time.

  Back at his desk now, Jeremy said, ‘Was Joe able to offer you any assistance?’

  ‘Yes he was, if only to eliminate himself as a potential witness. That’s really all I’m doing here today. But he tells me that you yourself are often out and about in the countryside – something about the kingfishers along the river?’

  Brother Jeremy smiled in acknowledgement, giving no sign that he might be a little aggrieved at Joe’s revelations about his own preoccupations – yes, he said, he had studied these birds for several years now. Did the sergeant have an interest himself?

  Smith’s hand consisted of a single card; presumably it was a good one but he decided this was not the time to play the golden oriole – he would look foolish if Brother Jeremy chose to continue the game.

  ‘Not really, sir, just a passing acquaintance with the things I see in my garden. But I did wonder again whether you had noticed any odd vehicles parked up or people hanging about the fields any time before Mr Randall’s body was discovered – even weeks before might be relevant. People often don’t realise that what seems trivial to them can be vital in a police investigation.’

  The friar nodded and made a show of thinking back before he answered – or at least, that’s how it appeared to Smith.

  ‘No, sergeant. I can recall nothing like that – I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not at all – negatives are often as useful to us as positives, strange as that might seem. Brother Joe also mentioned that Andrew is a fan of the local badgers. He likes to go out and watch them, I believe. So it really would be useful for me to have a word with him, if only, as I say, for the purposes of elimination. Do you know when he’ll be back from his retreat? Or would it make more sense for me to go down to Essex and have a word with him there?’

  If Brother Jeremy had laughed aloud then and said ‘Well, what a tenacious fellow you are!’ the words would only have expressed what was written all over his face. As it was, his answer itself was a model of measurement and calm.

  ‘We do not set arbitrary limits on the time we spend in meditation and retreat. Andrew will know when he is to return. Though I have to say that I think it most unlikely he will be of any assistance to you.’

  Smith nodded slowly as if he was after all about to accept that on this occasion he had been defeated by circumstances and the guardian’s access to a higher authority – and then he said, ‘The thing is, my boss. She’s such a stickler for detail and I’ve already told her exactly how many people here at Abbeyfields I need to speak to, to sew the whole thing up. If I don’t finish the job, she’ll be down on me like the proverbial ton of you-know-whats. Anyway, Brother Joe tells me that Andrew left in a taxi, and that it might even have been on the morning that the body was found, or maybe the morning after. He said you use taxis regularly to get to and from the station. Is that a particular firm in Kings Lake? Would you have a record of the bookings you make with them? Of course, being only a fortnight ago, I realise that they might not have sent in their account yet…’

  The friar waved a hand vaguely over the desk in front of him on which there were a few papers and files.

  ‘Somewhere here might be a record, sergeant. I don’t know if you want me to look for it now…’

  He made no move to do so, and the detective in front of him said nothing.

  ‘And as you rightly say, we won’t have received an account to cover that period yet. When we do and if you still wish to see it, you may of course do so. We have nothing to hide! If your stickler of a boss would like a copy, I will gladly send it.’

  Smith returned the friar’s smile and said, ‘Thank you, sir – I’ll let you know. And which firm is it that you use?’

  ‘ABC.’

  ‘Thank you. If you could have a word with Brother Andrew when he’s not actually retreating, and say that I would like to speak to him at some point, I would appreciate that.’

  They seemed to be done now. Smith returned the notebook that he had not used to his inside pocket and Brother Jeremy leaned back in his chair. After a moment he said, more conversationally now, ‘And you say that someone might be charged later on today, sergeant?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘Well, good work on your behalf, I’m sure. I don’t envy you, what with some of the people that you have to deal with in matters like these.’

  Smith had stood up.

  ‘We get to deal with all sorts – some good, some bad and some worse than that. Which ones were you referring to?’

  The guardian said, ‘These cruel men that dig out and torment wild animals. It’s no surprise if they sometimes turn on their own, is it? That they would kill a man as easily as they might a badger or a dog?’

  Smith was silent for a moment, looking past the friar and out into the trees beyond the lawns. Then his eyes came back thoughtfully to the man in front of him.

  ‘As it happens, it’s not one of the badger diggers that we’ve arrested, sir. It’s another one of the metal detectorists.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry. I had just…’

  Just what, thought Smith. Assumed? Why would you do that? He nodded then and thanked the friar for his cooperation this morning. Once out of the room, making his way through the shadowy interiors back towards the entrance that had seen great men come and go over the centuries, he went over it again methodically, certain that he had not made a mistake. Why would Brother Jeremy have assumed that they had arrested one of the diggers of badgers? Smith had said nothing about them today or on the first visit. What had put the idea into Brother Jeremy’s head?

  Back at his car, Smith opened the door and left it wide, allowing the heat to escape. He sat in the driver’s seat and the frown returned to his forehead – he looked into the rear-view mirror and tried to relax it away but it was still there. Maybe he needed botox.

  Had Brother Jeremy been in conversation with Steven Harper? The idea could have come to him that way but somehow he didn’t see them as bosom pals. If it hadn’t come from there, then where? He spent another minute or two examining the nature of the assumption that the friar had just made; was it an unreasonable one – that the metal detectorist had happened across some men digging badgers, that there had been some sort of an altercation resulting in an exchange of blows, one of which killed Mark Randall? Superficially it was reasonable enough but it did not fit all the facts. Randall had been found in the middle of a field, face down, felled by a single blow… He stopped his thoughts there and re-focused – where exactly in the field had Randall’s body been found? He didn’t know. He was investigating a murder without having been to the scene of the crime. Move on for now, after taking note of that fact. Randall had appeared to have been actively at work when he was struck heavily, once, from behind; not what one might expect if he had been involved in some sort of argument with ruffians engaged in an even more illegal enterprise. Presumably someone had come quietly from behind and struck him down, then.

  Ten minutes had passed and he was no further forward – literally. He started the car and glanced around before pulling away. Brother Jeremy was standing on the terrace outside his office, no doubt watching and wondering why the detective was still there. The friar was too f
ar away for Smith to see his face. For a moment, Smith was tempted; go back to him and ask him outright, and then he drew away, drove down the hill onto the Lowacre road and pulled into the first available gateway. It would be handy if Steven Harper came along in one of his tractors now but he wouldn’t gamble on being that lucky. He took out his mobile and dialled Waters.

  Yes, he had put Harper’s number into his notebook and he read it out to Smith, but why did he need it? Smith could hear other voices and Waters had already told him that they were still at Gareth Stone’s place, or, more correctly,at the lock-up he used to store the materials for his decorating business. They had had a successful morning – he could hear that too in Waters’ voice. It was like that in the beginning. The excitement, the chase and the capture – that’s what keeps most people in the job, that and the sense that this will never be routine. Detectives are often like soldiers in that way – not much use for anything else in civvy street once they are out of the job. In the end, of course, it does become routine to an extent. Smith had examined this more than once. Did he ever feel that old excitement nowadays? Or was it more a sense – a rather sad sense – of being right once again, being right about the fact that people are as misguided, mean or malevolent as they ever were? This was about Belfast again; he wasn’t yet back on an even keel. He asked Waters what they had found.

  ‘We’ve got some tools with sandy soil on – a couple of trowels and a small spade, not bloodstained before you ask. Also a pair of boots with what looks like the same soil. Phil Jefferson has done some forensics training and he reckons this could match up with the area near Lowacre. That’s all been bagged ready to go. We’ve taken a wheel off his van and that should also provide a matching sample. There’s no way he can argue he wasn’t in that area recently.’

  ‘Good. What else?’

  There obviously was more; reading Waters when he was excited was about as challenging as Janet and John Go Shopping With Mummy.

  ‘Serena went through his wallet when we were at the house. She found a till receipt for a mobile top-up voucher. She phoned this through to Central and they got back to us a few minutes ago. The code on it ties up to the number that was ringing Randall that night. It was Stone who was calling him.’

  ‘Dear me. That put a smile on Sergeant Wilson’s face, didn’t it?’

  Waters didn’t answer that directly. After a pause he said, ‘I think we’ll have enough to charge him, won’t we?’

  ‘It’s not looking good for him. Remind me, what’s his alibi?’

  ‘He says he spent the evening at Michael Symons’ place. They had a couple of cans and were looking at maps, planning where to go next with their detectors. He says he went straight home at about midnight.’

  ‘And what does his Mrs say?’

  ‘Says she was asleep and didn’t hear him come in.’

  ‘Very supportive. Do they share a bed?’

  There was a pause before Waters said, ‘I don’t know whether anyone asked, to be honest.’

  ‘Minor detail, by the look of it. Well done to the pair of you. You haven’t let the side down, or so it would appear.’

  Waters said, ‘So why are you after Steven Harper? Is it for DI Reeve? She isn’t here, by the way. Does she want a line-up for Stone?’

  ‘No idea. No – I just fancied a bit of a ramble in the countryside. As Mr Harper seems to farm most of it, I thought I’d ask him to accompany me. I might be getting into this bird-watching thing. Did you know I found a golden oriole?’

  ‘Yes. I was there.’

  ‘So you were. You could mention it to Charlie Hills, though. I don’t think he believed me. Anyway, keep up the good work. Hello – there’s a tractor coming down the road.’

  He could picture Water’s expression before he said, ‘That’s nice, DC. Is it a shiny new red one?’

  ‘No, a dirty big green one. I’m just wondering whether it might be… And it is, would you believe it? Got to go!’

  ‘DC? What…?’

  Waters heard a shout above the noise of an engine getting louder before the phone fell silent.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘I didn’t come down to here myself. There were those tapes up and there was a patrol car parked on the headland – other vehicles as well, a Landrover, I remember. But you could see from the road what was going on, where it was going on. I pulled over and was going in to find out what had happened but I called mother on the phone first and she already knew, so I kept out of it. The body must have been lying just about there.’

  Steven Harper pointed to a spot maybe thirty yards out into the field but Smith would have found it easily enough without him if he had come this way alone. There was a thin, patchy crop of barley growing here – poor this year, lack of rain on this flinty soil, Harper had told him – and where the officers, the police surgeon and then the scenes-of-crime people had carried out their operations it had been thoroughly flattened. The vegetation on the margin of the field also bore many signs of activity, and then there was a sloping bank down towards the river Laveney – more than one pair of boots had made their way down towards the water as the search for the murder weapon began.

  Smith had taken off his jacket and carried it over one shoulder, hooked onto his thumb. He should have left it in his car. He looked across the field to the place where Mark Randall had been found. The woman who was jogging had done well to notice the body, though presumably the green leaves of the barley would have been a little less tall a fortnight ago, despite the lack of rain. She was from Lowacre, the file said, but from which direction had she come? He wondered whether anyone had asked. The footpath upon which they were standing was a public one, signposted at the field entrance, and he asked Harper where it went onto from here.

  ‘It follows the river for another two hundred yards, then it goes up the hill around the big pasture, round the back of the friary and comes out on the lane that runs between Lowacre and Upper Mill.’

  ‘So it runs close to the friary?’

  ‘Right along the back wall.’

  The buildings were not visible through the trees that bordered this field but Smith could see where the friary must be, on the land that sloped gradually up from the valley of the little river behind them. Looking then again across the barley field back in the direction of the road where they had parked the car and the tractor, he saw that it was shimmering in the heat haze. Peaceful here, not an engine to be heard…

  Smith said, ‘Mrs Harper – how did she already know what was going on that morning? I assume that someone must have told her.’

  Harper looked a little taken aback, as if he was uncertain how to answer without incriminating his own mother. Smith waved it away.

  ‘Not important. I ask all sorts of random questions. So we haven’t passed this badgers’ sett yet unless my field-craft is even worse than I thought. You’d have told me anyway, yes?’

  ‘Keep going if you want to see where it is.’

  After another fifty yards, the path began to diverge from the river, leaving a small island of gently rising ground between the water and its own well-worn course. Ancient elder bushes and nettles grew thickly there, and when they reached it Smith could see the pathways made in and out of it by animals. Harper pointed out the mounds of earth that the badgers had excavated, and by pushing in a few feet they were able to see entrances into the ground. Smith was surprised by the scale of the earthworks as it became apparent – put some wooden doors over the entrances and it could belong to a colony of hobbits.

  He said, ‘So was all this soil dug out by the badger diggers?’

  Harper laughed, though not unkindly.

  ‘No! This is all the badgers’ work. If you have a look at the paws on one that’s been run over, you’ll see how they manage it. The diggers had a go around the other side where it’s more hidden from view. Go back onto the path and I’ll show you.’

  The path looped around the copse of elder bushes and back towards the river. The sett was extensive a
nd seemed to run right under the hill, with entrances on both sides of it but here Smith could see immediately that it had been interfered with – instead of the neat mounds of earth produced by the animals there were three or four large heaps of fresher soil where men had dug into the slope, leaving gaping, jagged holes like wounds. One was deep enough for someone to crawl right inside and be hidden entirely from view.

  Harper was silent and a quick glance showed that he was angry at what was in front of them, even though it was not the first time that he had seen it. Smith felt it too – this was a mean and spiteful act, the digging out of such animals, never mind what the men concerned had intended to do with them afterwards.

  ‘So, will the badgers have deserted the sett after all this?’

  Harper said, ‘Not a chance. Stubborn buggers, they are. It’s hard enough to shift one out of a new digging they’ve made in a dyke. You’d have to blow this up with dynamite to get rid of ‘em completely. This is an ancient sett – my dad reckons it’s been here for centuries.’

  The two of them stood and looked on in silence for a few more moments. Then Smith remembered something that Brother Jeremy had said when he was introducing Smith to Brother Joe.

  ‘Up at the friary they told me this is called Asher’s field. Is that right? Who was Asher?’

  ‘Yes. That’s an old name as well. He was a priest, something to do with one of the churches or monasteries on the hill. There’s a lot of history all around here. On the other side of the hill towards Upper Mill there’s the site of a Roman villa. And you can still pick up flint arrowheads on these fields here if you look hard enough.’

  Smith walked back onto the footpath and Harper followed him.

  ‘No wonder it attracts these treasure hunters. But the chances of finding something like that Lowacre hare again must be remote – you can’t imagine that anyone would find something worth dying or killing for.’