The Lady of the Lake

by Peter Guttridge

Gilchrist stopped and said to Heap: ‘You go ahead and come back up here when you’re done.’

  The door was open when Gilchrist and Wade got to it. Grace was in the kitchen boiling a kettle, barefoot, wearing her usual costume of baggy work shirt and jeans. Gilchrist looked down. The left foot had a big bunion and was a bit bashed up, as Grace had said earlier in the week. Dancer’s feet indeed.

  ‘All that would explain all those lorries and vans and cars coming in and out all day and all night that fucked up my drive and caused the spat that got totally out of control.’

  ‘And you challenged him on this?’

  ‘Damned right.’

  ‘And how did he respond?’

  ‘Sneeringly,’ Grace said, pouring the water into a cafetière. The aroma of the coffee quickly filled the room.

  ‘That’s when he started to threaten me and he started spreading rumours about me. Although, actually, he did that last in collaboration with that snake, Richard Rabbitt, I think. I really just wanted to be left alone to live my life here quietly, but neither of them was going to let me do that.’

  ‘But you’d no idea Farzi was growing cannabis in the greenhouses?’

  ‘No idea. I never see the greenhouses. They’re beyond that little rise. I thought that, covered in whitewash as they are, they’d just been left to fall down. I think a couple of them have.’

  ‘And you never heard any ruckuses from the stables?’

  ‘Never. I saw various workers from time to time. And at grape-picking time there were a lot of people there.’

  ‘Locals?’

  ‘Perhaps – they were all people of colour. You may have noticed there aren’t many people of colour around here in general. For that matter, when I first moved to this area there weren’t many people of colour in Brighton either.’ She thought for a moment. ‘What will you do with Abbas?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I assume he’s up to his neck in it.’

  She poured the coffee into three mugs and indicated the milk and sugar on the table.

  ‘He’s been arrested. Aside from this we need to talk to him about the death of Joe Jackson.’

  ‘He’s implicated? Bastard.’

  ‘When was the last time you actually saw Said Farzi?’

  ‘Couple of weeks, maybe. Why?’

  ‘Just trying to establish timelines. Reg Dwight had a drink with him the night Rabbitt was killed?’

  ‘So he said. But, thinking about it, Reg was probably seeing Abbas.’

  ‘Why?’ Gilchrist said.

  Grace raised one of her famous eyebrows. ‘They’re both gay.’

  ‘You think Dwight and Abbas are an item?’

  ‘I didn’t go that far. But might they have hit it off? Sure.’

  Gilchrist drove up to Plumpton Down House probably more pumped up than she should have been. Rhoda Knowles was in the lobby. The debris from the Lego Plumpton had been swept up. Knowles gestured to a table beside the bottom of the stairs. A desktop computer sat on it.

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t know where it was?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Yes, well, I know now.’

  ‘And you know what is on it?’

  ‘I’ve had a look.’

  ‘Why are you being so cooperative?’

  ‘Liesl’s friend Sophia might have something to do with it.’

  Gilchrist nodded. ‘Is Mrs Rabbitt here?’

  Knowles shook her head. ‘This is part of Richard I didn’t like,’ she blurted.

  ‘Liesl and her friend?’

  ‘No. That’s just men and their weaknesses. I mean the marijuana thing.’

  ‘What marijuana thing?’

  ‘The arrangement he was trying to put together with Farzi for when cannabis was legalized in this country.’

  ‘No deal before it was legalized?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Never mind. And was William Simpson involved in this?’

  ‘I told you before, I don’t know who that is.’

  ‘So that was it – they were going to go into business to grow marijuana on their land.’

  ‘Well, it was a bit more than that. They were quietly buying up all the land round here. They were going to have a massive marijuana estate. Plumpton, Ditchling and Hurstpierpoint were going to become sales hubs with high street shops selling a range of products. It was a good business plan, actually.’

  ‘But dependant on marijuana being legalized in the UK.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And if it wasn’t?’

  ‘More bloody vines.’

  Gilchrist nodded. ‘Thanks for that – and the computer. Is Mrs Rabbitt in?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Can you get her, please?’

  Knowles looked at Gilchrist. ‘I don’t work for her. There’s a bell over there.’

  Gilchrist nodded. ‘What are you going to do after this?’

  ‘Well, there may be still work for me here once all this has settled. If not – every time a door closes another one opens. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ Gilchrist said. She rang the intercom bell. Liesl Rabbitt’s distinctive harsh voice answered. Why would any man want to have anything to do with this creature?

  ‘It’s DI Gilchrist, Mrs Rabbitt. I need to speak to you urgently.’

  There was a silence, then: ‘Now is not convenient.’

  ‘Would it be more convenient for me to get a warrant for your arrest and stick you in a police cell overnight?’

  More silence. ‘I’ll come down,’ Mrs Rabbitt said.

  ‘Great,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Be quick about it.’

  ‘The deal Richard Rabbitt offered you to avoid the divorce payment. Was it to do with drugs?’

  ‘Why should I tell you?’

  ‘Because you don’t want to become a person of interest to the police just when circumstances have conspired to change your life for ever. Because we’ll be looking very closely at how that came about. Very closely.’

  ‘He thought he’d fallen in the butter with what Farzi was offering. Marijuana production on a massive scale legally, first medicinally, then, when cannabis was legalized over here, recreationally.’

  ‘And you saw an opportunity there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, your friend Sophia. She’s linked to the Albanian mafia, right?’ Gilchrist put up her hand. ‘Don’t pollute this air with denials.’

  ‘What is this Albanian mafia racist shit you want to peddle?’

  ‘Mrs Rabbitt. You’re a tough cookie, I can see that. I don’t know what hardships have shaped you into what you are. But I also know there are people in your community who are far tougher. Who feel absolutely nothing about the destruction they will wreak for and on others.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I have no community. I am for myself.’

  ‘So you don’t know about any Albanian gangsters approaching your husband?’

  ‘All I know is that we dropped Richard off at the end of the drive and went into Brighton to the casino.’

  Gilchrist’s phone rang. Sylvia Wade. ‘Ma’am, the divers have found something significant in the lake over near the drive to the big house. A bundle of clothes. Shirt, jumper and red trousers. Wrapped round a hand sickle. So we were right about why he stole Donald Kermode’s clothes. Immersion in water won’t help us with DNA unfortunately. But, ma’am, a sickle as the murder weapon?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Oh, and there is an upper set of dentures in a trouser pocket.’

  ‘I hope that will put Bilson’s mind at rest.’

  ‘I haven’t heard from him, ma’am.’

  ‘I haven’t either.’ Gilchrist stepped away into a corner and lowered her voice. ‘OK, I’ll go down to the pond now. Tell DS Heap to join me there. And please hurry those techies up with the phone and the laptop.’ She glanced at Mrs Rabbitt. ‘Oh, and there’s Rabbitt’s computer to collect from Plumpton Down House.’

  ‘Ma’am.’ />
  ‘And dig out from Kermode’s statement exactly what clothes got stolen – it’s time we prepared some kind of public statement. I’m surprised the story hasn’t broken properly yet.’

  The portly constable Gilchrist had met on the first evening of this case was standing by his car when she drew up beside the lake. She couldn’t remember his name, so simply said: ‘You have the evidence?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s bagged in the back of the car, ma’am.’

  ‘Show me the sickle, please.’

  It had a worn wooden handle about eight inches long and a curved, almost semicircular metal blade that in a straight line from hilt to tip would have measured about a foot. It was sharp in the inside edge. ‘Is that iron?’

  ‘I believe so, ma’am. That probably means it’s quite old – they tend to be other metals these days.’

  ‘Do you know what they’re for, constable?’

  ‘Harvesting and reaping usually, ma’am. I know the sickle as a reaping hook, but my grandfather on my mother’s side, who was an agricultural labourer over Glynde way, used to call it either a rip hook or a slash hook.’

  Gilchrist turned it over in its plastic bag. ‘So to slit somebody’s throat with this you’d need to be behind them?’

  ‘I would think so, ma’am.’

  ‘Is the pathologist Frank Bilson on his way?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know that, ma’am,’ the constable said. ‘Would you like me to find out?’

  At that moment, Gilchrist saw a police car pull up at the cattle grid and Heap climb out of the back. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’ll be fine for now. Get these things off to the lab.’ She looked at the constable. ‘And thanks.’

  She met Heap halfway along the iron fencing. ‘And?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing to report yet, ma’am. DI Mountain was very happy to do the initial interview of Abbas. Customs and Immigration are with her because of all the passports we found stashed in his flat belonging to the people they were enslaving. She also sends her regards and her congratulations on sorting out the muddle of all those swimming-related murders back when we first encountered her.’

  ‘I like her. I’m looking forward to sitting down for a chat with her over a drink or two at some point.’

  Heap nodded.

  ‘I think Liesl was going to be paid off with drug money,’ Gilchrist said, ‘especially when cannabis is legalized over here.’

  ‘Legalization is not going to happen any time soon,’ Heap said. ‘The government would rather throw good money after bad fighting a drug war it can’t possibly win. It doesn’t seem to care because too many Daily Pustule readers and editorials equate lateral thinking on drugs with liberal-lefty ideas. They want safe streets but won’t do the one thing that would lead to them.’ He saw Gilchrist’s look. ‘Soap box immediately stashed away, ma’am.’

  Gilchrist’s phone rang. The chief constable. ‘Uh-oh,’ Gilchrist said to Heap, showing him her screen. ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘What the hell are you up to?’ Hewitt said sharply.

  ‘Haven’t we already had this conversation?’ Gilchrist said and immediately regretted the flippancy.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Hewitt said. ‘So I’m not best pleased to be having it again.’

  ‘Well, acting on information received in Brighton we made a dawn raid on Said Farzi’s property in Plumpton Down, in conjunction with Customs and Immigration, and not only found what might well prove to be a slavery operation but also found what might be the biggest illegal drugs manufacturing operation in the county. That’s what I’ve been up to. Ma’am.’

  ‘But why was your colleague who is meant to be handling that side of the Downs in this investigation sitting in my office on Brighton seafront five minutes ago, while you, who should be investigating the death of a student in Brighton, are over in cow-pat land?’

  ‘Mostly llama pats round here, ma’am, actually. Ma’am, we now have two people of interest in Morocco.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No what, ma’am? I haven’t asked a question yet.’

  ‘What are you doing about that young man in your actual bailiwick?’

  ‘As I keep saying, I think what happened to him there is linked to what is going on here. And that is definitely linked to Said Farzi in Morocco.’

  ‘We could send Detective Sergeant Donaldson to Morocco, if you insist,’ Hewitt said.

  ‘Don-Don to Morocco? He couldn’t handle a drone attack that turned out to be his own district’s drones, so how is he going to handle something that requires a bit of brain power?’

  ‘That’s no way to talk about a fellow officer.’

  ‘He was a fellow officer until his brain got frazzled by steroids. Now he’s a lumbering disaster and should be dismissed from the force before he does something terrible or allows something terrible to happen because of his ineptness.’

  ‘I hope you have chapter and verse for these assertions, Sarah, otherwise I’m astonished by your attitude. Now you are not going to Morocco on some wild goose chase but you are, as instructed, going to focus on the death of this poor young man in horrible circumstances in Brighton. With immediate effect, Donaldson will take over complete control of the operation on that side of the Downs, including the drug bust.’

  ‘And take all the bloody credit for it, no doubt,’ Gilchrist muttered. She took a long breath. ‘Ma’am,’ she said, then the call ended. She looked at Heap. ‘Let’s go to see Mark Harrison and Reg Dwight, see what they know about Said Farzi’s operation.’

  THIRTEEN

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Harrison said at the door of his small farmhouse. ‘Never met the guy or had anything to do with his stables. I don’t smoke the stuff so don’t even know who the local suppliers are. We all know Nimue smokes but I can’t imagine for one second Farzi was her supplier, given their mutual hostility.’

  He ushered them into his home, ducking beneath a beam as he led them into his main room. ‘I thought you were here for my recipe for ostrich egg omelettes.’

  ‘We’re not, but you intrigue me,’ Gilchrist said. ‘You can really use ostrich eggs for omelettes?’

  ‘For sure. Ostrich eggs are just as edible as chicken eggs, if a bit more glutinous. Problem is, they’re the size of around twenty-five chicken eggs so you really need a very big pan to cook them in and a few friends round to eat one. Makes for a very companionable occasion. If I say so myself, my omelette parties are famous. Or maybe infamous.’

  ‘Ostrich eggshells look pretty tough,’ Heap said.

  ‘Damned right. You either use a hammer – which can get messy – or drill into them. You should try one.’ He pointed into the kitchen at a huge bowl with several huge eggs in it. ‘Take one of those when you go – or does that constitute a bribe?’

  ‘Depends if we’re going to arrest you or not,’ Gilchrist said then flushed as she realized how unprofessional she was being. Gawd, hormones over professionalism again.

  ‘And are you?’ he said, an attractive smile on his face. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

  ‘Do you have farm implements here?’ Heap said.

  ‘Don’t have much use for them. The usual tools I suppose.’

  ‘Hand sickles?’

  Harrison shook his head.

  ‘What about the implements you use when you’re slaughtering your ostriches?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have a clue how to do that. I call someone in from over Forest Row way and he brings his own kit. I can’t even watch. Too squeamish.’

  ‘OK then,’ Gilchrist said. ‘That’s all we need. If we find we have more questions, we’ll be back in touch.’ She rooted in her pocket and handed him a card. ‘And if you think of anything, then please call me.’

  Harrison looked at the card in his hand. ‘And if I don’t?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t what?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Don’t think of anything. Can I call you anyway?’

  Gilchrist flushed but didn’t say anything. />
  ‘Where is your flock?’ Heap said quickly.

  ‘Just round the back of the house,’ Harrison said. ‘Wanna see?’

  ‘Sure,’ Gilchrist said.

  He led them round to a large, high-fenced enclosure. ‘I’ve only got the three. It’s all I need really.’ He stopped and looked around. ‘Fuck. He’s got out again.’ There were only two, rather drab-looking ostriches in the pen. ‘I’ve got to make the fence higher,’ Harrison said as he pointed down the field at a huge, black-and-white ostrich heading at speed towards Nimue Grace’s wood. ‘He goes a bit potty sometimes. I don’t know why.’ Harrison looked over at the police car. ‘Couldn’t give me a lift down there, could you? I’m going to have to bring him back. Let me just grab my tranquillizer kit.’

  As they were heading back down the drive, Gilchrist said: ‘How are you going to catch him?’

  ‘With difficulty.’

  ‘Can we help?’

  ‘It’s kind of a tricky process because there’s a risk of being disembowelled. If he kicks out and catches you in the belly with that long, sharp toenail that’s you done with.’

  ‘How do you avoid that?’ Heap said.

  ‘Gotta get close enough to him to grab his neck and force his head down. He can’t kick out then. I’ll inject him with the tranquillizer then. Of course, it’s equally tricky when I let go of his neck before the tranquillizer takes effect. Not so much the kick as his wings. He’ll bat at you with them because he’s disoriented and he can do it powerfully enough to break some of your bones.’

  When they parked by the lake they could see the ostrich between the trees at the edge of the wood. Gilchrist and Heap accompanied Harrison towards it. It seemed to be grazing. It watched them with one of its big eyes as they approached.

  ‘What’s that?’ Gilchrist said, pointing out something lumpy a few yards in front of the ostrich.

  Harrison shrugged and led them closer. He stopped about ten yards away from the lump. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Shit indeed,’ Gilchrist murmured as she peered at a bearded man, lying on his back, dead and disembowelled.

  An hour later, Gilchrist called Nimue Grace. ‘This is just a heads-up that we have another dead person in your wood. We haven’t been able to identify him yet – he had no ID on him. We don’t think the death is suspicious.’