Death at Burwell Farm

by Betty Rowlands

  ‘How good of you to come so promptly,’ she said. Her voice had a warm, bright quality that complemented her smile. ‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting just a moment…’

  While speaking, she balanced her drink on top of the contents of the filing tray, fished a key from the pocket of her skirt and unlocked the door to a single-storey building which stood at right angles to the main house and which Sukey guessed had been converted from its original use as part of a working farm. On the door was a notice reading ‘Reception’ and the interior was fitted out as an office, with a steel cupboard and filing cabinet behind a desk on which stood a computer monitor and telephone. There were slatted blinds at the windows and a jardiniere containing some well-tended foliage plants in one corner. It was in many respects typical of the offices of small businesses Sukey often visited in the course of her work, except for the exotic note struck by a series of posters on the white painted walls. One in particular caught her eye. It depicted a human form – whether man or woman was not clear – crouched at the base of a towering mountain. The figure was ringed by the words ‘internal shackles’, each letter slightly distorted to give the appearance of a link in a chain. Immediately above, a second ring spelled out ‘Inner Wheel’, in a similar style but with cracks here and there in the links as if to suggest a partial sundering of the chain. In a third ring, the words ‘Outer Wheel’ carried the theme of liberation a stage further until at the top the shackles disappeared altogether and the single word ‘Unlimited’ appeared in a blaze of bright, bold characters in white, edged with gold. Sukey recalled the shopkeeper’s dry comment and suppressed a smile.

  The woman put her file and her drink on the desk and glanced round. Seeing Sukey staring at the poster, she assumed a slightly mysterious expression and said in an almost reverential tone, ‘That is the theme of our work. That is the path along which our initiates are led.’ She held out a slim, brown hand, the fingers tipped with ruby-red nail varnish to match the full, sensuous lips. ‘My name’s Serena,’ she added.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Sukey replied as she took the proffered hand, somewhat taken aback by the style of welcome. In her experience, victims of crime had no time for social niceties, being concerned only with speeding up the process of detection. ‘Now,’ she went on tactfully, glancing at the files on the desk, ‘I can see you’re busy so if you could just show me where the missing items were kept…’

  ‘Yes, of course. Jarvis will show you – he’s the gardener, he discovered the break-in when he arrived at seven o’clock this morning.’

  ‘He starts work early,’ Sukey remarked.

  ‘He has to finish any jobs that call for the use of machinery before morning meditation,’ Serena explained earnestly. ‘Complete tranquillity and the absence of any movement is essential if we are to create the right ambience.’

  ‘I see,’ said Sukey, wondering how the meditators managed to cope with the sound of tractors, combine harvesters or aircraft. ‘Was it Jarvis who called the police?’

  ‘That’s right. He went to get out the motor mower to cut the grass and found it had gone, so he called them straight away. They asked for the serial number, but he wasn’t able to give them that. I have to phone them and quote an incident number.’

  ‘You can let me have the details if you like and I’ll pass them on.’

  ‘That’s very kind, thank you.’ While she was speaking, Serena took a catalogue of garden machinery from a folder and opened it. ‘This is what they took.’ She pointed to an illustration of a ride-on motor mower. ‘We only bought it a couple of weeks ago – we intended to manage with the old one until the end of the season, but the firm was doing a special offer. They took our old one in part exchange. You can take this if you like – I’ll write down the serial number for you.’ She copied something from a sale docket and handed the catalogue to Sukey. ‘Now,’ she went on, pointing through the open doorway and across the yard to a white-painted gate set in a low wooden fence running between the house and a second single-storey building immediately facing the office, ‘if you go through there you’ll find Jarvis somewhere around, either in the garden or the greenhouse.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sukey went to the van, got out her case of equipment and followed the directions. As she crossed the yard she spotted a notice on the door of the other, more modern and evidently purpose-built block, with the words ‘Rejuvenation Suite’. She speculated briefly on what it might contain as she opened the gate, stepped through and followed a path which led round the corner to the side of the house featured on the cover of the brochure. Double-glazed doors gave on to a paved patio, where dozens of containers of every imaginable shape, size, colour and material overflowed with flowering and foliage plants.

  At first sight, the garden appeared to consist solely of a vast expanse of lawn enclosed on three sides by trees and tall hedges and bordered to left and right by flagged paths. The gardener was nowhere to be seen, but she could hear a faint trickle of water nearby and, above it, what sounded like someone using hand shears. Following the sounds, she took the path on the right-hand side and, to her surprise, after she had walked only a few yards, came to a concealed opening in the hedge. The clipping and the gentle splash of the water became closer and she passed through the gap to find herself in a miniature paved courtyard. Two stone steps led down to a sunken pool where a fountain in the shape of a miniature dolphin played over a bed of coloured pebbles that glistened like jewels in the dappled shade cast by the fronds of a weeping tree. The suddenness of the discovery brought with it a kind of Alice in Wonderland sensation, as if she had stepped into another dimension, cut off from day-to-day reality and absorbed into an atmosphere of almost tangible peace and repose. Momentarily forgetting why she was there, she put down her bag, sank on to the stone bench placed invitingly at the water’s edge and spontaneously exclaimed, ‘How absolutely lovely!’

  The sound of clipping ceased and a man appeared in front of her, so suddenly that it seemed as if he had sprung out of the ground. She judged him to be about fifty, with a weathered complexion and deeply tanned muscular arms. He wore faded jeans and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and he held a pair of shears by both handles. ‘Morning, miss,’ he said politely.

  ‘Gracious! Where did you spring from?’ said Sukey with a start.

  ‘Next door!’ He gestured behind him with the shears at yet another concealed opening in the far corner of the courtyard. ‘You’re early – they don’t start till half-past nine.’

  Sukey got to her feet. ‘Are you Mr Jarvis?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s me. If you want to stay here quietly for a while’ – a further movement of the shears invited her to sit down again – ‘I’ll go and work somewhere else.’

  ‘Oh, no, I’m not here on a course. I’ve come about the theft of a power mower,’ she explained, fishing her ID from her pocket.

  ‘Oh, right. You’ll want to see where they broke in. It’s this way.’ He beckoned with the shears and she followed him through the opening by which he had made his unexpected entrance. It led to yet another secluded area where a similar stone bench was surrounded by beds of plants arranged in a wheel. A spicy perfume hung in the air. ‘You won’t need me to tell you that these are aromatic herbs,’ Jarvis remarked.

  ‘This is the most fascinating garden I’ve ever seen,’ said Sukey. ‘How many of these little green cubby-holes are there – and are they all connected?’

  ‘There’s eight in all – six this side and two the other. They were planned like this by a previous owner, but the folks who run this place find them just right to sit and think in.’ Evidently, ‘meditate’ was not part of his vocabulary. ‘We can get to the outhouses through here,’ he went on, leading the way to yet another concealed opening in the far corner, beside which was a small wicket gate. ‘Course, I can’t bring machinery through – I just use it as a short cut when there’s no one around.’

  Beyond the gate, the normal world reappeared in the shape of
a patch of uncultivated ground at the back of the ‘Rejuvenation’ building, with a compost heap, several cold frames and sundry terracotta pots stacked neatly in a corner. A lean-to glasshouse took up part of the wall and alongside was a brick built shed. The door stood open; two heavy padlocks, their hasps cleanly severed, lay on the ground beside it. ‘That’s where the mower was kept. I should have been using it this morning, the grass is due for a cut,’ Jarvis grumbled. ‘You can see how the blighters got in – must have used bolt cutters, those padlocks are the strongest I could find. They nicked a hedge-cutter and a strimmer as well, only they weren’t new.’

  Sukey opened her bag and got to work. Jarvis stood by watching as she bagged up samples and searched for clues. ‘Been doing this job for long?’ he asked as she got out her camera and focused on the print of a boot clearly visible in a patch of damp earth.

  ‘Quite a while. How about you?’

  ‘Been a gardener all my life.’ He fished out a packet of cigarettes and lit one, leaning against the wall of the shed. ‘Worked for these people since they came here,’ he added. He seemed disposed to chat, and it occurred to Sukey that he might be a useful source of information.

  ‘I’d never heard of this place until a couple of days ago, and then I came across two people who’d been… what do they call them? Initiates?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He lifted his face to the sun and exhaled smoke skywards. ‘It’s a rum set-up on the face of it –all that stuff about wheels and the cosmos – but I must say, a lot of them seem to find it helps. I’ve seen some of them turn up on their first day looking scared out of their wits but after a while something seems to happen… they look sort of peaceful. Mostly, that is. Once in a while it seems to go wrong.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Hard to say. I never get to talk to them, of course, but now and again I come across them, sitting in one of the gardens doing their thinking. Mostly they sit there with their eyes shut and a smile on their faces, as if they’re having a pleasant dream, but once or twice I’ve had the feeling that the dream wasn’t so pleasant.’ He broke off and inhaled deeply on his cigarette. ‘Suppose you can’t win ’em all,’ he added philosophically.

  Sukey’s interest was aroused. ‘I don’t suppose you happen to remember a gentleman recently who appeared disturbed… you know, having a bad dream?’ she asked.

  Jarvis pursed his lips and thought for a moment. He took several deep drags on the cigarette before replying, ‘Can’t say I do. There was a lady, though, only yesterday it was – but she wasn’t in the garden, she came running out of what they call the Rejuvenation Suite just as I was packing up.’

  ‘Running?’

  ‘Well, hurrying. It was unusual – they mostly come out of there looking half asleep.’

  ‘What time would this have been?’

  ‘About five o’clock, I suppose.’

  ‘You work a long day.’

  ‘I’d been to the dentist in the morning so I started later than usual.’

  ‘This lady – was she one of the regular initiates?’

  ‘I’ve seen her once or twice before and she always seemed happy enough, but this time she looked sort of put out, as if something had upset her. She got in her car and drove off as if she had a train to catch.’

  ‘What sort of age was she?’

  ‘Sixtyish, I suppose. She had white hair. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I happen to know of a lady who used to come here. She died suddenly last night of a heart attack and I wondered… did you happen to notice what car she drove – the lady you were speaking of, I mean?’

  ‘A red one, a Metro I think. Oh dear’ – Jarvis’s ruddy features registered concern – ‘I’m sorry to hear about your friend.’

  ‘I didn’t actually know her, she’s a relative of a friend,’ Sukey explained. ‘I’ve finished here now; I’ll just go back to the office and have a word with Serena. Thanks for your help.’

  He dropped the butt of his cigarette on the ground and stamped on it. ‘A pleasure,’ he assured her.

  She found Serena laying out a selection of slim paperbacks on a table just inside the reception area. She looked up and said, ‘Did you find anything? Do you think there’s any chance of catching the thieves?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell at this stage, but we’ll do our best. Jarvis tells me there were some other items stolen – do you happen to have their serial numbers as well?’

  ‘The strimmer and the hedge-cutter? Probably.’ Serena went to the filing cabinet; while she was searching, Sukey glanced idly at some of the books. The titles struck her as distinctly bizarre: The RYCE Road to the Great Unlimited, Your Cosmic Energy Released, What Your Cosmic Energy Can Achieve, You and the Cosmos. She picked up the first one and glanced idly at the cover. ‘They’re for sale,’ Serena told her as she wrote numbers on a piece of paper.

  ‘Er, not for me, I don’t get much time for reading,’ Sukey said hastily and put the book down.

  ‘At least, take a brochure. There’s no charge for that.’ Serena gave another flashing smile as she held one out.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sukey politely. She took the brochure and slipped it into her shoulder bag. A thought occurred to her. ‘By the way, could you tell me where you bought the mower?’

  ‘From an outfit called Lawnmowers Unlimited in Tewkesbury. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It might help the police in their enquiries; that’s all. They’ll be in touch if they have anything to report.’

  As Sukey returned to her van, a young girl cycled through the gate, dismounted and parked her bike alongside the wall of the building. She was dressed in blue jeans and a matching T-shirt that set off her long straight blond hair and blue-grey eyes, and she had an air of calm that seemed to reflect the pervading atmosphere of the place. She gave Sukey a friendly smile as she entered the office.

  Seven

  After dealing with the two jobs in Cheltenham, Sukey drove to Pittville Park and ate her sandwiches beside the lake watching children with their mothers feeding the swans before returning to the van and checking in to central control for further instructions.

  ‘Garden shed broken into and another motor mower gone missing,’ the officer taking the call informed her.

  ‘Tewkesbury area?’ Sukey enquired. ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No, that’s it for the moment.’

  The detached bungalow on a corner plot about half a mile from the town centre was in sharp contrast to Burwell Farm, but was just as well maintained. The garden was a picture of geometric order, the grass immaculately trimmed, ‘the edges looking as if they’d been cut with a razor blade, everything clippable clipped into shape and all the plants standing to attention’, as she described it to Fergus that evening. It reflected the personality of the owner, an elderly gentleman with a neatly trimmed white moustache and an upright military bearing who introduced himself as Major Hyde, pointed indignantly to the splintered door of his garden shed and barked, ‘Happened while my wife and I were out visiting friends yesterday evening. Blighters must have watched us leave. Don’t know what this country’s coming to, in my day you could go out and leave your door open and no one’d steal a farthing. Things are coming to a pretty pass when you can’t turn your back for five minutes without being robbed.’

  He stood watching while Sukey, who had been interposing sympathetic noises during his tirade, began inspecting the damage. An old-fashioned bicycle lay on the floor inside the shed. ‘Did they have to move that to get at the mower?’ she asked.

  ‘As it happens, they would have done. Why do you ask?’

  Sukey got out her brushes and began dusting the frame. ‘They might have left prints when they handled it,’ she explained. A couple of minutes’ work revealed evidence that someone had grasped the bicycle by the crossbar. ‘Would that be yours?’ she asked, pointing to the distinct outline of a thumb shown up by the grey powder.

  ‘Definitely not,’ the major sa
id flatly. ‘I always hold it by the saddle and handlebars.’

  ‘What about your wife?’

  ‘Not allowed in the shed,’ he responded without a flicker of a smile.

  ‘Then we might be in luck. I’ll need to take your prints for elimination, if you’ve no objection.’

  ‘None whatever. Anything to help catch the blighters.’ He remained watching without further comment until she had finished her examination and then led her indoors. He sat down at the kitchen table while she took his fingerprints. ‘I thought criminals wore gloves nowadays,’ he remarked as she manipulated his fingers.

  ‘Not all of them. You’d be surprised how dim some of them are. It’s how a lot get caught, making idiotic mistakes like that.’

  ‘They should bring back National Service,’ he declared with a snort of contempt as he scrubbed his hands at the sink. ‘That’d teach ’em to behave themselves, give ’em a taste of old-fashioned discipline.’

  ‘That’s not a bad idea,’ Sukey agreed diplomatically as she packed her equipment away. ‘Just one point,’ she added casually, ‘Do you mind telling me where you bought the mower?’

  ‘A place just up the road from here – Lawnmowers Unlimited. Not been open long. They offered a good deal in part exchange. Why d’you ask?’