Rainstone Fall

Chapter Twelve

As the hours drained away like molasses from a leaky tin the atmosphere at Mill House became stifled, stale and desperate. No phone call, no message. I gave myself until the morning to abdicate from detective work for ever.

Annis and I had delivered the bad news to Jill at her place in Harley Street in person. There were no tears and no recrimination, just hollow-eyed quiet fear.

She remained implacably opposed to calling the police. ‘I’m too scared. But I’ll call my sister now.’

Back at Mill House nobody slept much. Tim dozed in one corner of the sofa, I haunted the other while Annis stayed curled up in the big blue armchair, the one my father had killed himself in. Ashtrays were full and the sour taste of too much coffee and cigarettes complemented the grinding headache behind my forehead. All night the blustery wind had thrown rain against the blind windows like handfuls of grit. When dawn finally came it was barely an improvement. Dirty clouds rolled low over the valley and the light was feeble. I started the morning rituals of breakfast for form’s sake. It helped me mark the end of the night, the end, I hoped, of our helpless waiting around. Decisions would be made today — one way or another — and we would be released from limbo. Handing round tea and toast felt like the first positive thing I’d done for a long time. It was acknowledged by grunts and mumbled thanks and restored some life into the deadly tableau of the last few hours, yet nobody found anything new to say. A few remarks about the dreadfulness of the weather soon dried up. Everything else had been discussed to death.

It was nine o’clock exactly when the cordless phone that had been lying in the middle of the coffee table like a dead thing gave its electronic warble. All three of us jumped and made some kind of involuntary sound. I grabbed the handset, took a deep breath and answered.

‘You’ve got the stuff then, all of it?’ The voice sounded thin and far away.

Instant sweat formed on my hands. ‘What do you mean? You got it all.’

‘Don’t fuck about, Honeysett. Take down these directions. Bring the stuff, all of it, mind, wrapped in several carrier bags, and take — ’

‘Hold it. I don’t have the stuff.’

‘What the fuck do you mean, you don’t have it? I know you cleaned out his safe, the grapevine’s buzzing with it.’

‘And two blokes with balaclavas and baseball bats mugged me for it in Charlcombe Lane five minutes later. I presumed that was you. You’re telling me it wasn’t?’

‘Of course it fucking wasn’t, we had a deal, why should I have to mug you for the stuff? You handed it over? You didn’t even put up a fight?’

‘How do you know I didn’t put up a fight?’ I protested.

‘Because you’re not talking from a hospital bed, you arsehole. You totally fucked this up.’

‘Where is Louis? We kept our side of the bargain, we emptied Telfer’s safe. Someone obviously knew that was going down and only you could have told them, we certainly didn’t. So return the boy. Keep your side of — ’

‘Shut up, Honeysett. Do you think I’m going to all the trouble of snatching the kid and feeding him baked beans and Hula Hoops and listen to him whining all week just so I can give him back for nothing? I can’t believe you fucked this up. If I find out you are trying to pull a fast one I’ll make you regret it.’

‘I don’t. I was held up. Baseball bats studded with nails. I wouldn’t do anything to put the boy in danger.’

‘Shut up, now, let me think.’ There was a brief pause. ‘All right, Honeysett. I’ll find something else for you to do. Until you deliver, the boy stays where he is.’ The line clicked dead.

‘Verdict?’ Annis asked after a moment of intense silence.

‘He said it wasn’t him, or them, that held me up in Charlcombe Lane. Someone else knows what’s happening here, but whoever has Telfer’s stuff now isn’t connected with the kidnapping. Something seriously weird is going on here.’ I thought of the man in the hat watching us through binoculars. ‘This all smells somehow of a turf war between rival gangs, everyone ripping off everyone else, with us smack in the middle. The worst thing about it is he won’t hand over the boy until we’ve pulled some other stunt for him.’

‘Did he say what he wants?’ Tim asked, looking worried now.

‘No.’

‘I know you don’t want to hear this, Chris,’ Annis said, ‘but I think it’s time we went to the police. We’re completely at this guy’s mercy and Jill has had about all she can take, not to mention the boy’s — ’

‘Save your breath, I agree.’ It seemed obvious now. I had felt defeated ever since I had lost the ransom loot in Charlcombe.

‘You do?’

‘I do.’ It was more than just the logical conclusion of an operation gone so wrong that it could no longer be expected to work out well and it was more than fear for the boy’s well-being. It was a leaden tiredness and a sudden and complete loss of faith in my own abilities. Standing in the middle of the room, uselessly holding on to the phone, with two pairs of expectant eyes on me, I felt like running away. I’m only a painter, I felt like saying, this isn’t my kind of job. Had I volunteered for this? Must have done. Whatever for? Did I really need this much excitement? ‘I’ll take it straight to Needham, personally, no phone calls, it’s safer that way.’ I chucked the phone on to the sofa.

‘You want us there?’ Tim asked.

‘No, you lot stay here.’

Half an hour later I was riding the Norton through blustery wind and rain into town, nearly blinded by the moisture on my goggles. The rain stung my face. I was on my surreptitious way to the police station where I would explain to Superintendent Needham how I had got myself into the biggest mess of my less-than-illustrious career as a private eye. It would not count as betraying a client’s confidence since Jill was by no means a client but it was without doubt an admission of total failure. And trust. What if I was laying Louis open to reprisals? I was no longer sure whether I had to take the death threat seriously. Surely that was just something kidnappers said to frighten you?

Halfway down the London Road I got a bad case of the jitters. I began to feel as though I was caught in the cross hairs in a madman’s rifle sights. I was getting more paranoid by the minute. I checked over my shoulder — the Norton had no mirrors — every few seconds, not knowing what I was looking for.

I parked the bike in the motorcycle bay in North Parade Passage, locked up the helmet and stuffed gloves and goggles into my pocket. I’d try and see Needham privately. I had to arrange for us to talk outside the station where we couldn’t be overheard. I’d make sure though that someone heard me say that it had to do with the Albert Barrington murder, not that I thought that was any guarantee that our kidnapper, if he had an ear in the station, wouldn’t somehow suspect foul play. Foul play. . Who was I playing foul? The kidnapper? Hardly. But was I breaking a promise to Jill for ‘her own good’ or the boy’s or for my own peace of mind? Did I simply want to abdicate responsibility because I’d had enough? I couldn’t deny that I was planning to heave a deep sigh of relief and hide in my studio for the foreseeable future from the moment the police took charge of this mess.

I was walking along Manvers Street on the opposite side from the police station and slowed down now to check the cars in the car park in front of it. Needham’s big grey saloon was in its reserved space. Traffic was steady. Just as I got ready to dodge across between two buses a voice behind me piped up. ‘Sir?’

‘What!’ I turned around and found myself looking at a young man of perhaps twenty. It was hard to tell because only the small tanned oval of his face was visible as he peered out through rain-blinded glasses from the enormous hooded plastic poncho that covered him and what for his sake I hoped was a rucksack.

‘I’m supposed to give you this.’ He breathlessly held out a folded piece of paper. His accent was antipodean and he might have sprinted from the backpackers’ hostel a few doors down.

It was a lined piece of paper from a notepad, folded into a small rectangle and already damp. I opened it up. It was written in biro in hastily scribbled capitals.

HOPE YOU’RE NOT THINKING OF TALKING TO THE POLICE. TOLD YOU I’D KNOW. TOLD YOU WHAT WILL HAPPEN. WAIT TO BE CONTACTED.

‘Who gave you this?’

‘Some guy.’ He gestured over his shoulder.

‘Where? What did he look like?’

‘I don’t know, only saw him for a moment. Back there at the corner. He wore a hat. Gave me a fiver to catch you up.’ He was already moving on, towards the station.

‘Wait a second, I need a better description than that.’ I tried to hold him back by the arm but he shook himself loose.

‘Look, mate, I can’t stop, I gotta make the fuckin’ train to Heathrow. I’m outa here, your weather’s turned to shit, mate, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

I trotted beside him. ‘What kind of a man was he? I mean was he young, old, tall, short, fat, slim?’

‘Just normal, like. He wore a hat. I only saw him for a second and I can’t see much through wet specs anyway. Rain’s always a pain in the ass.’ He peered at me over his wet glasses.

‘What else was he wearing?’

‘Jeez, if I’d known you’d give me the third degree I’d have told him to forget it. Some coat I guess, nothing so it’d stick in your mind, all right?’

That always depended on the mind, I thought, and let him get on. I watched him weave his way through the traffic between bus and railway station. I looked around, behind me, along Manvers Street, scanned the pavements full of pedestrians pushing hurriedly through the rain in both directions. Where was the dark sinister stranger in a hat watching from a street corner? Where was the threatening soundtrack that always helped TV detectives to know when they were being watched with ill intent? The rain stopped abruptly. A long row of faces in a passing tourist coach looked up; I followed their gaze. The dark clouds were being rolled back by a high wind and bright, broken cloud followed from the west. By the time I had squelched my way back to the Norton the sun had made an appearance. Good, my jeans might dry off eventually. I used my sleeve to wipe the water off the seat, started the engine and rode off towards the unfamiliar sunshine.

There was not much else I could do. I had to be seen to be leaving. Nothing could have better reinforced the paranoid feeling that I was constantly being kept tabs on than the note that seemed to burn acidly in my pocket. Told you what will happen. Go here, don’t go there. Stop, start, fetch. Wait to be contacted. The impersonal phrase did nothing to hide the very personal nature of the relationship: I’ve got you by the balls and you will do my bidding. His bidding, his robbing. A man in a hat.

How long would I let myself be blackmailed? Wasn’t it in the nature of blackmail that it never stopped, that the blackmailer never went away? Would it be all over, would Louis have been reunited with his mother by now, if I hadn’t let myself be mugged of the ransom? Who had held me up in the lane after the burglary? All three of us had sworn blind that we hadn’t told a soul. That almost certainly meant that either the kidnapper himself had bragged about it in the pub or he had himself staged the mugging. I was not in a position to steal it back, whichever scenario held true, because I didn’t have the first idea who I was dealing with and I had the distinct impression that shouting ‘Who are you?’ down the phone might not make him give me his name, address and National Insurance number. It was beginning to dawn on me that not only did I have Louis’s abductor on my back but very likely a third party that knew what I was doing and when I was doing it (one which might soon be joined by Mr Disappointed of Lansdown demanding his stuff back, possibly with menaces).

While I was furiously chewing this over and without giving it much thought I’d hustled the bike up Lansdown Road and turned into Charlcombe Lane. I didn’t know what I was hoping to find as I rumbled past the scene of my humiliation and indeed I didn’t see anything that might be of use. But not so much further on stood a cast-iron signpost pointing towards the village of Woolley and the Lam valley where I had strange and unfinished business. I slowed to a less ferocious pace, took the turn and began to enjoy the sun as it dodged in and out of clouds as though desperate to dry the steaming land below. I passed small orderly farms, fields of grazing cows and sheep, yards full of scratching chickens and a herd of alpacas eyeing me as curiously as I did them. In the tiny village of Woolley the Norton’s growl brought children out into the single track lane that connected the small community with the outside world. I turned a corner and immediately a steep descent brought me down to the bottom of the valley where I crossed the Lam brook via a narrow bridge near the old gunpowder mill. Following the undulating lanes I soon reached Spring Farm where I’d met Jack Fryer struggling with his subsidy application. The gate to the yard was firmly closed and there was no sign of life. But the unmistakable smell of several thousand chickens reassured me that he hadn’t yet packed it all in. I shunned the muddy turn-off towards Grumpy Hollow and Gemma Stone’s ramshackle herb farm and rode on along the deserted lane. A horse poked its head over a hedge and snorted. I rode on until I came to a fork in the road and instinctively took the left; it was narrower and the road surface was nearly worn away. After I had passed a long and dilapidated structure made mainly from corrugated metal and girders, the tree-lined road lazily rose and fell for a quarter of a mile. Then it suddenly climbed steeply before broadening out as I approached what simply had to be Lane End Farm. One minor clue of course was the fact that the lane ended here at a high and substantial modern gate set into a chain link fence topped with barbed wire. The fence ran up the side of the hill to my left where it disappeared into the trees. A sign fastened to the chain link advertised the fact that there was 24 hour Security, illustrated with the drawing of an uncommonly ferocious-looking dog. To the right the fencing seemed to run across the entire end of the valley, which was much narrower here. The other clue, keeping in mind what Jack Fryer had said, was that beyond the fence lay what looked like a mix between junk yard and building site.

Beside the insubstantial and neglected-looking farmhouse and the few outbuildings I could make out, there stood a mass of shipping containers, by the looks of it simply plonked into the muddy grass of the field, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards from the fence. Many were blue, some white, but most of them were rusty. They seemed to have grown up there like a small hideous village around the L-shaped farmhouse’s grey and utilitarian shape. I glimpsed one or two Portakabins and a blue Portaloo among the containers. It was a depressing sight. Lane End Farm occupied nearly the entire end of the valley and as far as I could see nobody farmed it. The containers, apart from being ugly in themselves, looked out of place in a field many miles from the nearest port. To the left the hillside was covered in what looked like the remains of ancient woodland. Far to the right of the ‘farm’ snaked the other fork of the lane, disappearing into the distance. There was no farming machinery to be seen but a large van was driving along a track on the far end of the property and beside the furthest container a mobile crane stretched its telescopic arm skywards in a mute salute. I dismounted and leant the bike against the fence. After giving the gate, which was topped with razor-sharp spikes, a futile pull I decided to do a little exploring on foot. Judging by the path worn alongside the fence to the left I wasn’t the first to take this route up into the wood, in fact there was evidence that someone walked here quite regularly. I just hoped it wasn’t a patrol of dogs. The place looked like it should have guard dogs tethered to overhead wires patrolling the perimeter, then all it needed was a watchtower to make the stalag impression complete.

The fence curved sharply away and I left it behind for a while, just enjoying my walk. It wasn’t much of a climb from the gate before I stood on the crest of the hill. The woodland was dense here but wind and rain had done their bit to thin out the autumn foliage. I could see below me that the fence skirted the edge of the wood for a while, running east while it did. I made my way downhill again through the pathless strip of woodland. Halfway down I nearly slithered into something on the damp leaf litter: a dead dog. It was Taxi, Gem Stone’s old mongrel. There wasn’t even a second’s hesitation before pronouncing him dead, his head was such a bloody mess. Had I found him on the road I’d have assumed he’d been run over but here, in the middle of the strip of woodland? I knelt down and forced myself to take a closer look. I’d have made a bad crime scene technician, or one that threw up a lot over the evidence.

The blood was dried and there were ants crawling all over the beast’s fur. It quickly became obvious that his skull had been bashed in, even without the spatter of blood on the surrounding leaf litter. All that told me was that it happened right here.

I thought I could smell death too, despite the strong breeze that pulled the last leaves off the trees and sent them dancing around me.

I slithered further down the hill until I reached the fence. It cut at an angle here which brought me closer to the containers, allowing me to get a better view of the set-up. Walking on I kept close to the fence, which turned out to be a mistake. A gravelled track ran north out of what was really quite a small farm, through another gate and then disappeared over the rise where it would eventually connect to the Lansdown Road. A large van in the unmistakable red livery of the postal service made its way towards the gate. At the same time a skinhead on a quad bike appeared from between the rows of containers and took a fast and bumpy ride straight towards me. Who said there was never one around when you needed one? Pretending not to have noticed him I walked on along the fence.

‘Oi, you!’ He started shouting from twenty yards away. I kept walking.

‘Hey! Get away from there.’ He caught up with me and kept jerkily apace with me on the noisy quad. He was about thirty, dressed in faded black combat trousers, camouflage jacket and army boots. He had a broad, round-featured face and made the quad bike look puny. I was quite glad we had a fence between us. ‘Are you deaf or something?’

‘Is this Tony Blackfield’s place?’ I asked.

‘What if it is? Are you from the Chronicle? We’ve got planning permission for this so you can shove it.’

‘I can? And what is “this”?’

‘Storage units. Secure storage units is what they are.’

‘They look like clapped-out shipping containers to me.’

‘That’s what they were, now they’re storage units for rent. Secure storage units and I’m security. So piss off from our fence. You’re trespassing.’ He gave the throttle an angry twist and jerked ahead a few yards, then stopped the bike and got off.

I stopped too. ‘I’m trespassing? I presumed the farm started on that side of the fence.’

‘Well, it doesn’t. Lane End includes the woodland and we’d be obliged if people kept the fuck out of it.’

‘Right. Perhaps you should have run the fence around it then.’

‘Oh yeah? Have you got any idea how much fencing costs?’

‘Not this attractive kind, no.’ I stroked the chain link.

‘Well, it costs a fucking fortune. Now are you going or do I have to remove you?’ he said, jangling a bunch of keys clipped to his belt. Until now I had felt quite safe and smug on this side of the fence, now I noticed a small door set into it a few yards further down.

I changed my tune. ‘Fine, I’m going. I see the Royal Mail use your units as well?’

‘Yes, because we’re cheap. They don’t tell us what they store here but I suspect it’s second class mail,’ he said unsmilingly and probably meant it. He got back on his bike. ‘Don’t be fucking ages about it. Go back to the road by the shortest route.’ Then he grabbed a handful of throttle and bumped back towards the container park.

Secure storage. Not such a daft idea, really, apart from the traffic it engendered and the sheer hideousness of it all.

Now that I knew it was there I could just make out the dead dog on the slope to my right. I gave it a wide berth on my way back. At the gate I wheeled the Norton about, sat astride it, and was fastening my helmet strap when the sound of a motorcycle engine approached from downhill. At first I presumed it to be the skinhead on his quad, wanting more words; instead it was a figure on a muddy trail bike that appeared at the bottom of the rise where it came to an abrupt and squelching stop. The rider wore jeans, heavy boots, a red and white jacket and a helmet with blue-tinted goggles; more I couldn’t make out before he jerked his bike around in a ragged turn, while keeping an eye on me. Perhaps he was turning because he realized the lane ended here but I had the distinct feeling the sight of me at the top of the lane was unexpected and had spooked him. One way to find out. I worked the kick-starter. To my immense surprise the engine fired instantly and I shot down the hill in pursuit. If I was wrong about it I would soon know. With my momentary downhill advantage the distance between us quickly closed to only eight or ten yards so that I could easily have read his number plate if there’d been one. No doubt it was hearing the old-fashioned roar of the Norton’s twin peashooter pipes that made him glance over his shoulder. I saw him twist his throttle and he pulled away. I dropped a gear, followed suit and squeezed the last ounce of torque out of the Norton. The ancient technology responded bravely and I kept up with him while we flew past the corrugated iron barn, but as the bend approached I realized that I’d be unable to compete not just with the dirt tyres and modern engine but with the apparent willingness of the rider to risk going arse over tit in order to shake me off. Spattering mud and stones and skating with one foot on the ground, he took the corner at an impressive speed and then sped off in a power slide. By the time I had negotiated the muddy bend and got to the crossroads only the sound of his engine gave away that he had tuned right, towards Spring Farm. Now back on decent tarmac I accelerated with a bit more confidence in my tyres and took the next three bends idiotically fast. It was only the plume of black exhaust the enormous tractor sent skyward as it pulled out of a gate into the lane that stopped me from ploughing into it. Too late to brake. I squeezed myself into the opposite side of lane, foliage whipping my helmet, and shot past the giant machine screaming, with inches to spare. Driving the monster was Jack Fryer.

By the time my heart and I had slowed down again there was no sign of the other rider and all I could hear was the puttering of the Norton and the surge of the tractor’s big diesel. I pootled on in true geriatric style, narked by my idiotic little chase, giving myself an earful of abuse. My Accumulated Guilt Quotient was running high enough; crumpling the Norton and booking myself into hospital would have sent it into orbit.

Without even thinking about it I took the turn to Gemma’s place, crossed the stream without drowning the engine and once more left the bike under the tree. The track from here on in had been so churned up it was quite pointless trying to carefully pick my way between the bogs and puddles. I just squelched and splashed through regardless, in a temper with myself, the weather, the world. The rope was still across the entrance; I ducked under it. The woman’s car was there and a thin thread of smoke rose from the shepherd’s hut. The nights were getting colder now and I tried not to imagine what it must be like to spend a cold and wet winter in a clapped-out caravan. And coming to that, why didn’t I ask her? Along with a few other irritable questions I had on my back burner.

The hut was closed up and, as I could see through the window, unoccupied. The door to the caravan was ajar, an invitation to snoop if ever I saw one. When I pushed it open with two fingers it creaked ominously on its hinges; served me right. Now would have been the last opportunity for any pretence of polite behaviour, like a hearty call of ‘Hello, anybody home?’, but I was in Grumpy Detective Mode and just walked in. Not very far because there wasn’t far to go. It was truly tiny. Everything inside appeared to have been shrunk, too. The gas cooker had only two rings and the sink was full, giving room to a single cauliflower. Cupboards were built into every nook and cranny. At the back was an unruly bed disgorging blankets and cushions over the side, a narrow table cluttered with the remains of a breakfast that had included a boiled egg, and in front of that a short upholstered bench. There was an ashtray crammed with the butts of hand-rolled cigarettes and two empty bottles of Bulgarian table wine. But it was also quite homely: a chilli plant in a pot bearing bright yellow fruit on the table by the window; blue and red cushions with star and moon motifs; a heavy midnight-blue curtain still covering the larger back window; postcards, some of the seaside but mainly of the cutesy dog variety, pinned and Blu-Tacked to every surface. There were several photos of Taxi, looking younger. I opened a cupboard to the left of the cooker: jar upon jar of dried herbs, bottled fruit and pickled roots. Next to the sink an opaque sliding door revealed a claustrophobically narrow shower cubicle housing a mop and bucket.

I stepped outside again. There was less wind at the bottom of the Hollow but up in the sky the clouds still raced, producing a painter’s nightmare of sudden lights and darks. I walked around the side of the caravan between the sheds and the trees. The home-made greenhouse sheltered some broad-leafed plants I didn’t recognize. Walking over duckboards made from old wooden pallets I passed a stone trough gently overflowing with water that welled up from below; one of the springs, no doubt. The ground around here looked spongy, hence the duckboards. To the left, the wooden double doors of a large polytunnel stood wide open. Despite that, the difference in atmosphere as I stepped inside was remarkable. It was several degrees warmer, there was no wind and the earthy and verdant smell reminded me of warmer climates, of spring in the Mediterranean. The tunnel was about eighteen feet wide and seemed to stretch on for ever. The centre was taken up with an endless length of staging full of plants in black plastic pots as well as old tins, buckets and washing-up bowls. On either side in the ground, stretching into infinity it seemed, grew a jungle of plants. I took the right-hand path down the tunnel. Some of this jungle I recognized. There were ragged-looking tomato plants and some kind of spiky cucumber, then a multitude of lettuces.

I walked on right to the end where, near a set of closed doors under several lemon trees laden with small jewel-like fruit, Gemma huddled with her legs drawn up in a decrepit cane chair. A knitted hat, pointed and with ear flaps, gave her a vaguely Tibetan air. She was smoking an elegant, long-stemmed pipe, sending clouds of smoke, fragrant with cannabis, my way. By her side a tea chest supported a mug of tea and smoking paraphernalia.

‘Wondered when you would turn up,’ she said, her speech somewhat impeded by her bruised, swollen and torn lips. Dried blood scabbed the splits. One eye, too, was blackening and almost swollen shut.

‘About now,’ I said, distracted by her abused face. I looked around. Hers was the only chair. This wasn’t a place where Gemma Stone entertained. It was a place to rest from work, or perhaps it was her refuge from the world; a violent world, by the looks of it. The light at the end of this tunnel came filtered through the foliage of the potted lemon grove. I found an empty bucket nearby, turned it over and sat. She ignored me, looking straight past me into the jungle.

Some of my grumpy detective mood had evaporated in the warmth of concern but I couldn’t just sit there and get stoned from passive smoking, which was quite possible considering the liveliness of Gemma’s pipe. I lit one of my less entertaining cigarettes and added my smoke to the heavy atmosphere.

‘You want to talk about it?’ I said at last.

‘What?’

I raised an eyebrow.

‘You mean this?’ She pointed the stem of her pipe at the blackened eye. ‘Nothing to tell, I fell.’

‘Right,’ I said with less than full conviction.

‘Look, it’s really none of your business but if I’d been in a fight I’d say so, okay, it’s hardly a big deal. I got drunk, I slipped, I fell, end of story.’

It was always possible, I’d seen the empty bottles. ‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ I lied.

‘Oh, Albert. Yes.’ She returned her attention to the pipe.

‘So he was one of your clients? Why didn’t you say so?’

‘Who do you think you are?’ she said sharply. ‘The police are bad enough, then you turn up, uninvited, asking me questions. Every other day, I might add. I don’t have to tell you anything.’ Shooting me a resentful look was difficult with only one working eye but she managed it quite well. ‘Yes, he bought herbal remedies from me, he was a regular customer.’

‘But you didn’t tell the police that either.’

‘How much d’you think I want police traipsing all over this place, looking for murderers under the flowerpots?’

‘Not a lot,’ I agreed.

‘Too right. I don’t pay tax much, I’m not a trained herbalist, and anyway, no one is licensed to dispense the kind of herb I was supplying to Al. He had bad arthritis and smoking pot alleviates the symptoms. Everyone knows that but it’s illegal nevertheless.’

‘I’m aware of it.’

‘Well then. Nearly a third of this tunnel is given over to growing cannabis. Harvest is over now,’ she gestured down the tunnel, ‘but there’s enough evidence around the place to put me away any time.’

‘So Albert had been here the day he was murdered to buy a supply of pot?’

‘No. Never got here.’

‘But you were expecting him?’

‘He hadn’t made an appointment or anything. He’d just turn up on his electric bike at fairly regular intervals. I did think he was due around that time, that day or the next.’

‘I thought you didn’t like people just turning up.’

‘People like you. But Al was all right. We met at the Bath flower show, I had a stall there selling herbs one year.’

‘And you’d been to his place.’

‘Once or twice when he was too bad to even use the electric bike. He’d send word through the chicken lady who brings him eggs that he couldn’t come, which meant he was more desperate than ever, so I’d go round, see what I could do for him. When you mentioned Albert I got worried and drove over.’

Chicken Lady, Pot Lady. . Perhaps it was worth finding out what other ladies there might have been in his life and if they too had reasons not to come forward. ‘Okay, so far so good. Now explain why you seem to be completely invisible to DI Deeks. It’s a trick I would pay money to learn.’

‘Deeks is an arsehole,’ she said flatly. ‘You’d do well to stay away from him.’

‘That’s common knowledge but not an explanation.’

‘I’ve known him for years. He picked me up for possession once, ages ago. We came to an understanding. He has a pretty good idea of what goes on down here at Grumpy Hollow. Too good an idea.’ She put down her pipe which had gone out, then picked up her mug of tea and took a sip, which she instantly spat out again in an arc across the path. ‘Eargh, cold tea. Yuch.’ She got up and walked off down the path. ‘I’ll need to make some fresh.’

‘Hey, wait a second.’ I went after her. ‘You mean to say you managed to bribe Deeks into turning a blind eye?’

‘Managed to?’ Stopping beside a cucumber plant she produced a curved pruning knife, liberated one of the fruits and carried on. ‘You don’t have to try hard with Deeks, he’s as corrupt as they come.’ She walked up to me and tapped my chest with the smooth-skinned cucumber. ‘Now I’ve got a question: how come you knew it was Al who’d died in your car when the police didn’t?’

‘I was coming to that.’ And not before time. ‘A couple of kids had told me they thought they’d overheard two men threaten to arrange a little accident for someone called Albert.’

‘Oh? Did those kids happen to say who made the threat?’

‘No. It was dark and they didn’t see who it was.’

‘And you think — ’

‘Wait, there was more. In the same breath they also mentioned something similar might happen to the old witch snooping around at night.’

‘So. .?’ She managed to put considerable challenge into the one syllable.

I squirmed around. ‘Ehm, well, I thought that perhaps, you know, they might have been referring to you, in which case you might be in consid-’

‘The old witch? The old witch? And you think they were talking about me? I’m thirty-eight! Ouch!’ She dabbed her lips; one of her cuts had torn open. ‘Well okay, I feel a hundred and eight today but really!’ She flashed me a one-eyed rebuke. ‘Do you think I look like an old witch?’

Always the hard questions. I wisely ignored this one. ‘You’re not taking this seriously,’ I said instead.

‘This is serious. Just because I work up to my neck in muck half the time in the aptly named Grumpy Hollow doesn’t mean I’m completely beyond caring. So?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Course not what?’

‘Of course you don’t look like an old witch. Though you appear to have inherited your wardrobe from one.’ It just slipped out, you know how it goes.

She took a slow deep breath. ‘Says the bloke who rides around dressed like a crashed Spitfire pilot. Ha. Now I really need more tea.’

I followed her back to the caravan. ‘And you’re not worried?’

‘For the old witch?’ She shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But look around you, what would you have me do? If someone wants to hurt me who’s going to stop them?’ When we reached the caravan she squinted at the bottom hinge of the door. ‘Had a good look around inside then, did you?’

‘How can you tell?’

‘I left a dried lentil behind the hinge, it’s on the ground now. No matter. Come in, I might even make you a mug of tea.’

I sat at the table while Gemma lit the gas under a whistling kettle on the stove and cleared away her breakfast debris. ‘You know how they say it’s a small world? Well, you’ve no idea how small until you’ve tried living in a caravan. Now, let’s see.’ She stood on tiptoe to rummage in a cupboard fitted into the curve of the roof above the bed. From there she produced a shoe box, set it opened on to the table and almost reverentially folded back the tissue paper to reveal a pair of tiny, shiny, insubstantial-looking shoes, black, strappy, open-toed with three-inch heels. She lifted them out and placed them on the table, then turned them until they pointed accusingly at me. ‘And how far do you think I’d get in those? I wouldn’t even make it to the car. No, no, no, wait.’ Another dive into the cupboard above my head. This time she produced a bundle wrapped in tissue paper. She opened it and let the content unwind in front of her: a little black dress, bias-cut, black beads shimmering around the neckline. ‘Do you know when I last wore that?’ She rolled it up again, quickly, angrily. ‘I don’t. Can’t even remember. Oh, yes I can, Christmas two years ago. Jack Fryer had invited me for Christmas dinner at Spring Farm. When I got there it turned out I was the only guest. He had too much Christmas cheer and lunged at me over the roast chicken. I stuck a fork in one of his paws and drove myself home. Ever since then, usually around the full moon when he’s had a skinful, he comes round here to apologize and tries to make it up to me, if you know what I mean. I keep a special fork for him in my drawer,’ she concluded and carefully put away the shoes before seeing to the kettle which had begun to whistle like a steam train.

‘Couldn’t you get a more aggressive dog to help guard this place?’ I suggested tactlessly when two mugs of tea steamed between us.

She shook her head. ‘Not while Taxi is around,’ she said, looking out of the window.

‘I have bad news, I’m afraid.’

Gemma put her mug down. She understood instantly. ‘Oh. Poor Taxi. I had him for ever, it seemed. He went walkabouts some time yesterday. I was afraid that in this weather. . Where did you find him?’

‘Just a bit further up the valley.’

‘You mean near Blackfield’s place?’

I nodded.

‘Any sign of how he died?’

‘Not really. Hard to tell, I’m not a vet, you know.’

‘So he wasn’t run over or anything obvious like that. Probably old age, he was ancient, and the weather has been lousy. But I always hoped he’d just lie down by the stove and fade away, not out in the cold. But he always liked to roam. Come on, drink up, show me.’

‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. .’

‘Rubbish. Can’t let him just lie there. I thought you loved animals. We’ll go and bury him.’ She walked out, leaving me little choice but to gulp my scalding hot tea and follow her. With spade over her shoulder, pointy hat and scabbed and bruised face, she appeared to have stepped out of some medieval tapestry, the kind where people lie about with arrows stuck in their eyes. She chucked the spade into the cluttered back of the Volvo and we got in.

‘How’s Al’s cat settling in with you?’ she asked as she propelled the car up the slope.

‘Oh, he’s fine, still sniffing out the place. He can open doors, did you know that?’

Gemma stopped so I could get out and remove the rope from across the entrance. ‘Have you decided what to call him yet?’ she asked when I got back in.

‘Not yet.’

‘He’s a cute cat. You could call him Widget.’

‘No chance.’

‘Suit yourself.’ She took the ford of the brook as though it was open road, just briefly flicking the windscreen wipers on and off. Once up in the lane she cranked the big Zeppelin of a car round the corners in grim, high speed silence and eventually powered it up the hill so fast I thought she was going to drive smack through the locked gate on to Blackfield’s land. Instead she stopped a couple of inches short of the chain link, jumped out and got the spade.

‘Go on, show us.’

‘Actually, I think he did have some kind of accident. It looked as if. . someone might have hit him.’

‘Hit him,’ she repeated flatly.

I risked a glance over my shoulder. Her face was set in a rigid scowl. We walked on in silence. It didn’t take long to reach the point where I had turned down the hill. I slithered through the leaf litter with Gemma at my heels and found Taxi’s corpse easily.

Gemma stood motionless in front of it, gripping the spade like a weapon. ‘The bastards. They didn’t have to do that.’

She obviously had some idea of the who and why but an odd rasp in her voice made me think that this wasn’t the moment to quiz her about it. My own list of suspects was very short. Eventually she dragged her eyes away, sniffed. ‘I changed my mind, I don’t want to bury him here,’ she said, looking towards the fence. ‘I’ll bury him at the Hollow. Can you give me a hand? He’s quite heavy.’

Despite the cold, flies buzzed as we lifted the cold body. Gemma carried the front of the animal, oblivious to the blood and gore of the broken skull. We walked awkwardly up the slope, nearly fell twice. My mobile chimed as we reached the top. I shifted the weight on to my left arm and answered it.

It was Annis. ‘At last, I’ve been trying to get hold of you for ages but it said your mobile was unavailable. What’s going on, where are you, what are you doing?’

I sighed. There was some kind of liquid draining from the dead dog on to my clothes. I could feel ants crawl up my sleeves. A fat fly buzzed insanely around my head. ‘I’ll explain later.’

‘Sooner rather than later. He called again and he seems furious, demanded to speak to you. He has another job for us but he wants you on the phone when he calls again at. . well, in less than an hour from now. Can you get here?’

‘I’ll be there,’ I said simply and rang off.

We found space among the crates, buckets and tools in the crowded back for the dog and I closed the door with all the reverence I could muster. When I got in myself I noticed several bluebottles had made it into the car. Gemma reversed down the hill like she’d been driving backwards all her life, stuffed the back half of the car into the track-side weeds by the barn at the bottom and cranked the wheel around with furious efficiency before propelling us back towards the Hollow.

Digging a hole large and deep enough to bury the dog turned out to be surprisingly hard work. We dug the grave on the side of the slope, away from the springs, taking turns with the only spade. The ground was wet and heavy. When we had laid the dead animal at the bottom Gemma picked up the spade and without ceremony began the task of backfilling. I went off to wash my hands at the spring. By the time I got back she had nearly finished.

‘Thanks for doing that. Can you go now, please?’ she asked without looking at me.

I ignored the request. ‘Do you ever go to those woods?’

‘Of course I do. I go mushroom picking there for a start.’

‘But it’s private property? Blackfield owns it?’

‘Yeah, they own it, so what. Blackfield’s a complete bastard and wants no one near his property, he doesn’t give a shit for the few mushrooms I take away. Perhaps he got a few threatening letters or something when he started up that business with the containers and that’s what turned him into a paranoid antisocial bastard, that’s my most charitable theory anyway. We had words about me collecting wild herbs and mushrooms around there before he started with the containers though.’

‘And you do that at night?’ I was thinking about ‘the old witch snooping at night’.

‘Yes, some plants are best collected after nightfall. Or so it says in some of my old herbals and I have no reason to doubt it. Anyway, I like walking at night, it’s peaceful.’

Albert Barrington hadn’t found it so peaceful, though you could argue he’d found peace in the end. ‘Blackfield, is he the big guy with a shaved head? Dresses like a Hollywood mercenary?’

‘That’s Tony’s son Jim. I think you’ll find it’s him who’s in charge now. He went off for a few years, no interest in farming whatsoever. Can’t blame him, he saw his parents work themselves into the ground for no reward. Mind you, if he’d stayed they wouldn’t have been so shorthanded in the first place. Small mixed farm. Mad Cow Disease, Foot and Mouth, it doesn’t take much, the margins are so small. Then Tony’s wife died, cancer I think, not sure, the Big C’s still only whispered around here. Jim came back, took over, got rid of the last animals. I think Blackfield senior never recovered from losing his wife. Apparently he still keeps three chickens and only talks to them. Sounds like depression if you ask me. And when he looks out the window he sees a sea of containers rusting in his fields. Cheerful. You met his son then.’

‘Yes. He’s a charmer. Do you think he’s the one who killed your dog?’

‘Don’t know. Probably. Didn’t I ask you to go a while back?’ She looked a tired pointy-hatted pixie now, gazing past me, unfocused.

‘All right. Look, I’ll leave you my number.’ I made her accept one of my cards. Then I looked around. ‘You’ve got a phone, I take it?’

She snorted. ‘Dream on. They refused to give me a land line since none of this,’ she waved her arms in an irritable gesture, ‘amounts to a permanent abode. And you can’t get a mobile signal down here.’

That explained why Annis had had trouble getting hold of me. ‘How do you conduct business?’

‘Look, I get by, okay? Perhaps we could discuss my communication problems at some other point in the future? The distant future?’

‘Right. Take care.’ I didn’t want to leave, even though I wasn’t wanted, even though I was very much wanted elsewhere. ‘Perhaps you really should get a noisier gun.’

As I rode back towards Larkhall and the London Road I thought I could hear another motorcycle engine behind me but I didn’t see any vehicles, though I kept looking over my shoulder. Then the sound was drowned out by the drone of a microlight plane flying lazy circles under the clouds.