by Ford, P. F.
As he stood the wellies on the ground and eased his feet into them, he could hear a car approaching up the drive. The unique assortment of sounds confirmed it must be Norman’s. It had to be. No one else he knew would be seen dead in that car. Sure enough, a few seconds later Norman’s car appeared coming up the drive. He waved nonchalantly as his car rattled up alongside the others, then he crunched it into reverse gear, and the car whined and squeaked into position alongside Slater’s.
Slater stood and watched as the driver’s door swung open, dropping a good inch or two on its worn hinges as it did so. As his colleague eased himself out of his seat, Slater was sure he heard the car breathe a sigh of relief, and saw the suspension rise a couple of inches. He then watched as Norman failed to slam the door shut three times before he remembered he had to lift it to make up for the worn hinges.
‘You should sell that car to the nearest circus,’ said Slater.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my car,’ said Norman, indignantly. ‘It works just fine.’
‘Yeah, right. But it would look much better in a circus ring. The clowns would love it.’
‘You don’t know what you’re missing. Look and learn. This is a piece of British engineering, history.’
‘Yeah. I’ve looked,’ said Slater, laughing. ‘And I’ve learnt this car is from the period when we were making really shite cars.’
‘I’m just gonna rise above such ignorant remarks,’ Norman muttered.
Slater had just noticed a faint odour that seemed to be surrounding Norman. He stepped closer to Norman and took a cautious sniff.
‘Blimey, what’s that stink?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Norman, haughtily. ‘I can’t smell anything.’
Slater stepped closer still and sniffed again.
‘Have you been and bought some new aftershave?’ he asked, suspiciously. ‘You weren’t wearing any earlier.’
‘I might have nipped into a shop on the way over,’ admitted Norman, blushing slightly.
‘Ha!’ Slater let out a roar of laughter. ‘You’re not trying to impress Jolly Jane, are you? Cos if you are, you’ve made the wrong choice there, mate. That stuff stinks!’
‘Well that’s where you’re wrong, Mr Philistine. I’ll have you know this is the very latest-’ Norman began.
‘Is this because of what she said about John Hunter?’ interrupted Slater.
‘Of course not.’
‘You’re sweet on her aren’t you?’
‘Crap,’ said Norman. ‘She’s a colleague. I am not-’
‘I always thought you had a soft spot for her,’ interrupted Slater again. ‘You’ll be ironing your clothes next.’
‘Don’t you have any work to do? I didn’t come up here so you could take the piss.’
‘Well, if you didn’t want me to take the piss you shouldn’t have come up here smelling like a polecat,’ said Slater, beaming.
‘Like a polecat!’ Norman’s face drooped. ‘Do you know how much this stuff cost?’
‘You paid for it?’ said Slater. ‘Seriously?’
‘Oh, screw you. Your problem is you have no taste. I’ve told you this before.’
Looking at the offended expression on Norman’s face, Slater thought it was probably time to stop teasing him and get back to work. But it had been good to have a laugh for a couple of minutes to lift their mood, even if it was at Norm’s expense.
‘So what did Mr Hunter have to say for himself?’ he asked, returning to the more serious business at hand.
‘His story is that he’s Gordon Ferguson’s solicitor,’ replied Norman. ‘Apparently he’s been doing Gordon’s will. He went to see him to finalise the details.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Slater, sceptically. ‘So it’s just coincidental he was there the night before me.’
‘Right,’ said Norman. ‘And did you know, in my spare time I’m the Queen of Sheba?’
‘Well, that would explain the smell,’ muttered Slater, as Norman creaked open the boot of his car and fished out his own wellies and raincoat.
‘What’s that?’
‘I said that boot creaks real bad when you open it.’
‘I need to know a bit more about John Hunter,’ said Norman. ‘And I intend to do just that when we’ve finished up here.’
‘According to the nurse I spoke to, Gordon doesn’t get any visitors,’ said Slater. ‘So how has he been working on Gordon’s will?’
‘That’ll be one of many questions I’ll be asking,’ replied Norman, slipping on his wellies. ‘In the meantime, let’s go see how good these dogs are.’
The walled vegetable garden must have been an impressive sight in its heyday but even now, it was still quite a sight. Whatever difficulties Florence might have had, an ability to grow plants and look after a huge garden was not one of them. When Norman and Slater had been here before, they had only glanced at the vegetable garden in passing. Now they were able to take a closer look it was obvious, even to these two non-gardeners, that she must have put an enormous amount of work into keeping these gardens neat and tidy.
At the far end, almost fifty yards away, Ian Becks was marching around pointing his GPR equipment here and there, while the two spaniels were working busily away at the behest of their handlers, noses to the ground and tails wagging furiously. Three more men were in attendance, armed with a pick, spades, and shovels should they be needed. Slater and Norman took the opportunity to poke around in the two long lean-to greenhouses that ran along the south facing wall. Along one shelf, various seeds had been sown in trays and, on another shelf, small plants were being nurtured and prepared for the coming spring.
‘Jeez, look at this,’ said Norman, a look of awe on his face. ‘Are you sure she was doing all this on her own?’
‘Can’t be sure about it,’ said Slater. ‘But who the hell else could have been helping her?’
‘I can’t believe she did this all on her own. I mean, lots of people can manage to grow a few fruit and veg, but run a garden this size? And look after the rest of the gardens too? It takes training to learn all this stuff.’
‘It’s hard to believe isn’t it?’ agreed Slater. ‘From what I’ve seen and heard she wasn’t exactly all there, was she?’
‘If there isn’t anyone else, who’s going to grow these on now? What a waste.’
‘She was even growing fruit trees against the wall in the other greenhouse.’ Slater peered through the window in the wall dividing the two glasshouses.
‘If she was a veggie,’ said Norman, ‘she surely would have been self-sufficient with all this lot.’
‘Maybe she found the gardens good therapy,’ said Slater. ‘I mean, the TV show might have helped, but there’s only so many times you can watch the same thing over and over, right? But looking after these gardens would be a full time job, and it changes with the seasons, so it’s not the same thing all the time. Perhaps immersing herself in the gardens helped to keep out her demons.’
‘And there’s the satisfaction of creating. Like growing stuff and eating it. That has to make you feel good, even if it’s only at a subconscious level.’
Slater looked to the far end of the garden. Everyone seemed to be gathering in one area.
‘Looks like they might be on to something,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and see.’
They stomped across to the search team, which seemed to have become focused around the compost heap.
‘Have you found something?’ asked Slater.
One of the handlers pointed to his spaniel, which was sitting at one corner of the compost heap.
‘There might be something here,’ he said. ‘But I can’t guarantee it. With the compost heap being here it could be there’s something inside giving off the same smell.’
The heap was about four feet high. Ian Becks was stood on top, studying the small screen of the GPR, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.’
‘What do you think, Ian?’ called Slater.
&nbs
p; ‘It’s difficult to say,’ he answered, stepping from the heap and heading towards them. ‘I would imagine a compost heap in a working vegetable garden like this gets disturbed all the time so I’m not surprised I can’t get a reading. But if the dog says we should look here, I think we should listen to what it’s saying. If you think about it, this would be a bloody good place to hide a body.
‘For a start, the heat from the compost would speed up decomposition, and you don’t keep moving your compost heap around, do you? I think we should clear the heap down to ground level and then take another look.’
‘That makes sense to me,’ said Norman.
‘It would have been the last place I would have looked,’ agreed Slater.
‘Right guys,’ said Becks, to his two diggers. ‘Let’s get this lot moved.’
He stood back next to Slater and Norman and watched as his team went into action. After a few seconds, he turned to Slater.
‘What’s that funny smell?’ he asked.
Slater inclined his head towards Norman.
‘Someone’s got new aftershave,’ he said, grinning.
Becks turned his gaze to the unfortunate Norman.
‘We’re trying to use working dogs, here,’ he said, struggling to keep a straight face. ‘They’ve got very sensitive noses. That stuff’s going to overpower anything less powerful than a skunk.’
Norman looked at Becks, then Slater, and then back to Becks.
‘I have only two words to say to you peasants,’ he said huffily. ‘And the second one is off.’
Slater and Becks roared with laughter.
Twenty minutes later, the compost heap had been removed and a layer of loose soil removed. The spaniels were set loose again. Almost immediately, the older of the two dogs found what he was sniffing for and sat down to indicate where he thought there was a body. Fine drizzle began to fall as Ian Becks moved in and swept the area with his GPR machine.
‘I think we might have something here,’ he said, his excitement affecting all of them. But the rain was getting worse now. He looked up at the sky which had turned a dark, slate grey since they’d been on site. ‘We need to get a tent over this. If it gets too wet it’ll turn into a quagmire in no time.’
The dogs had done their work for now. There was no point keeping them out in the rain just for the sake of it, so they were taken back to their vehicle. It was going to be shovel power from here on in. But by the time the tent was erected, the rain had turned to hail and the sky had become so black it was like night, even though it was still an hour before sunset. Then, as the six figures huddled under the tent, there was a flash of lightning and an ominous rumble from the sky.
‘I’m sorry, but I think we’re going to have to leave this until the morning,’ said Ian Becks. ‘We haven’t got good enough lights to work out here in this, and I’m not happy having my people out here in this weather. And I can’t get the overtime sanctioned anyway.’
Slater wasn’t exactly over the moon at this news, but he wasn’t really surprised. There didn’t seem to be any money available for anything at the moment, and they still had two months to go before the year-end.
‘I think you’re right,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘If there are any bodies under here they’ve been here for fifty years. Another day won’t make a whole lot of difference. Maybe the weather will be a bit brighter in the morning.’
‘We’ll be back here at eight,’ promised Becks. ‘There’s no point in you coming out here to stand around. I’ll call you as soon as we find anything.’
‘You sound very confident,’ Norman observed.
‘I’ve just got a feeling,’ said Becks.
Chapter 30
It was nine-thirty the next morning when Slater took the call he had been waiting to hear, but not wanting to hear, from Ian Becks.
‘We’ve found a skull,’ said Becks. ‘I’m no expert, but I think it’s an adult, not a child.’
‘An adult?’ exclaimed Slater. ‘But we don’t have a missing adult. All the staff are accounted for.’
‘So, maybe they had staff who weren’t registered to look after the kids who weren’t registered.’
‘Yeah, but…’ Slater didn’t really know what to say. He hadn’t been expecting this.
‘I’ve already phoned for the mobile pathology team,’ said Becks. ‘I had warned them we might need their help. They’re on the way here now. They should be here by lunchtime. In the meantime, they’ve asked us to stop digging until they arrive.’
‘Right,’ said Slater. ‘There’s no point in us rushing up there until you’ve got something for us to see. In the meantime, I think there’s someone me and Norm need to speak to about those gardens. And before I do anything I need to speak to a higher authority.’
‘I should also let you know the dogs have found another possible site.’
‘You’re kidding me. I thought you said they couldn’t detect skeletons.’
‘It might be a false alarm, but it’s the same dog that found this one, so I’m not going to argue. This time there’s a shed on top, so I figure it’s a good bet.’
‘What have we got up there, Ian, a bloody graveyard?’ asked an appalled Slater.
‘It’s beginning to look like it, isn’t it?’
‘Okay. Thanks for calling. We’ll call in later this afternoon to see how you’re doing.’
Slater put the phone back with a heavy heart.
‘Problems?’ asked Jolly.
‘They’ve found one body already, and one of the dogs seems to think there’s another site close by,’ he said.
‘Oh. I see. Not so good then,’ she said, grimly.
‘I’m beginning to wonder what exactly we’ve uncovered up there.’
‘You can see why Mr Winter’s death was made to look like an accident now, can’t you?’ said Jolly. ‘And if the house hadn’t been ransacked we would never have suspected any different.’
‘No. That’s not right. You suspected from the start. I was the one who dismissed the idea out of hand. If you hadn’t been so convinced it wasn’t right, we’d never have got anywhere.’
‘Just a lucky hunch,’ she said.
‘The Old Man told me hunches are unreliable,’ said Slater, ruefully. ‘That wasn’t the case here was it?’
He pushed back his chair.
‘Talking of the Old Man,’ he said, ‘I suppose I’d better go and tell him about our latest development. Maybe now he’ll let us start investigating Sir Robert bloody Maunder properly.
‘Come.’ Murray’s voiced boomed through the door.
Slater opened the door just enough to poke his head through.
‘Err, have you got a minute, Boss?’ he asked.
‘Well, come in, man,’ said Murray, mildly. ‘There’s no need to hide behind the door. I don’t bite.’
‘I thought you were going to the other day.’
‘This isn’t about Sir Robert again, is it?’ Murray sighed. ‘You don’t give up do you?’
‘You told us to carry on investigating the two murders,’ explained Slater. ‘And you said it was okay to start a search of the grounds, so we have. Now the search team have uncovered a body. Or at least they’ve found a skull, but that’s what we’d expect if the body’s been there for fifty years.’
‘Oh bugger,’ said Murray, wearily.
‘And the cadaver dogs have indicated another grave,’ added Slater.
‘What do you want from me?’
‘I need your permission to investigate Maunder,’ said Slater. ‘We can’t ignore the possibility any longer, boss. We need to interview him properly.’
‘Let me make some calls. It might be better if he volunteered to come in and be interviewed. In the meantime, I’ll get you a warrant to start checking out his financials etc. But I don’t want you making a song and dance about it, right? I want it low key.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Slater. ‘Believe it or not, I’m not enjoying this, Guv.’
‘Low key?’ said
Norman, indignantly. ‘If it was anyone else we’d be speeding up there with a search warrant and a dozen uniforms. But because it’s Sir Robert Maunder he’s going to be invited to come in for a chat. Talk about one rule for us and one for them.’
Slater knew exactly what Norman was getting so uptight about, but there was nothing they could do about it.
‘So what do we do in the meantime?’ asked Norman. ‘Sit on our hands and wait?’
‘I’ve got a much better idea than that,’ said Slater. ‘Jane knows what to look for so it’s best if she stays here and keeps on digging into Maunder’s affairs. In the meantime, we are going down to Portsmouth.’
‘What’s at Portsmouth?’
‘Who’s the one person who might know what exactly is buried in those gardens and where?’
‘Of course.’ Norman grinned. ‘Gordon the gardener.’
Chapter 31
‘You’ll see why I suggested you bring your coat now,’ Slater said to Norman as he parked his car outside the Belmont Nursing Home.
‘But these places always have the heating wound up so it’s like a sauna,’ argued Norman. ‘We won’t need coats in there.’
‘The thing is we won’t be in there,’ said Slater, with a grin. ‘Gordon’s a gardener, right? He still prefers the great outdoors. He’ll be sitting out on the terrace at the back, all on his lonesome, staring out to sea.’
‘What are you, psychic?’ asked Norman.
‘No. I just thought it would be a good idea to phone ahead and make sure it was okay to come. Apparently it’s all he’s done since I came last time.’
‘No shit. Good job I brought my hat and gloves too.’
They found Ferguson exactly where Slater had left him last time he came. They took a seat either side of him. If he noticed them, he didn’t show it, continuing to stare off across the sea at nothing in particular.